Ne Bis In Idem
by Prisca Machado
Summary: The one in which the 'world on fire' slips out of his grasp, and all that is left is the oblivion of darkness, silence and scattered thought.
1. Prologue

**Ne Bis In Idem**

 **Prologue**

He is out on the streets when it happens for the first time, making his way to Nelson & Murdock to start yet another day in an office with as many clients as Antarctica has warm beaches. There is also much to be said about New York's cold break of winter, especially if paired with his refusal to go back up the stairs and change into warmer clothes before leaving the apartment. His spine has been throbbing as if the Hulk waltzed on his back, having slipped over a ridiculous puddle while running in the rain on the rooftops yesterday, skidding and plummeting against the corner of a dumpster in a graceless heap. It's more than a little embarrassing that Daredevil managed a showdown with Wilson Fisk better than water on the ground. Still. He's been controlling his urge to limp and grimace at any twinge on his spine, but going back to change was dismissed without so much as a second thought.

The sting of the wind bites his skin once more, sending regret made of shivers down his back, his fingers freeze in protest around the extended cane.

 _That was a poor decision_ , he thinks now solemnly, schooling his jaw to un-clench with cold. Walking slightly faster, he cups his left hand against his mouth, blowing heat, wondering how much he must already look like a human popsicle. He winces a little at the thought of Foggy going on for hours about how little he moves a finger to take care of himself, as if he is an oversized helpless kitten.

It's not like the weather will make his life any more miserable with the way his back is rioting. All in all, maybe it's even a good idea; he can feel the air is saturated with water that screams icy rain. It might even act as an unpredictable ice pack. Nope. He's not half as good at this optimist thing as Foggy and Karen seem to be.

He resists the urge to put the cane under his arm and push both hands as far into his pockets as he can to protect them. As much as his sharpened senses make him more than capable to navigate without his cane, it would be weird to meet people who know he's blind so close to the office. _Hang on, Matt_ , he thinks, teeth chattering.

And then it happens.

…

He's about to cross the street, pushing the pedestrian button he knows is there, when a torrent of noise blasts against his skull, howling inside his head, tearing at his eardrums.

For a moment, _pain_ is everything he can comprehend.

The cane drops from his hand, its clack against the pavement lost in the maelstrom of sound, when an intense flash whitening the corners of his 'world on fire' blasts coherence to nonexistence. As lightning, agony strikes him, fulminating in its million volts; excruciating pain explodes in his eyes and ears. The raging agony is something he never felt before—insurmountable torment, whipping inside his head and out through all his nerves.

His nervous system implodes, forcing his heart to beat as a crazed beast and send the blood with a terrifying pressure to all his veins. Completely overwhelmed, he cannot register the exact amount of pain he's in, cracking like thunder on his senses, every nerve ending a superconductor of desperate agony.

It hurts. His eyes and ears _burn_.

Hell is scorching his eyes, his eardrums are on fire, the roar hollers and the light flares, peeling his corneas. It is painful. It is inconceivably painful. He cannot-

It all stops.

He must be on all fours on the pavement, because his hands and knees are scraped. His throat is raw and tongue tastes copper, he doesn't know if he's still screaming, doesn't know- The sidewalk is solid under him, the whoosh of the cars passing indicates the traffic is again on green.

Something touches his shoulder – a hand – the pressure meant to be comforting for the blind man. He recoils, batting it aside and pushing to stand, to evade, to… The ground tilts under him as he staggers, he tries to find balance but stumbles, other hands try to give him purchase but he flinches away, his head throbbing. He doesn't know who's touching him, doesn't know anything, his legs give in again and he must still be screaming because his throat is catching fire while he attempts to snarl at them to _stay away, don't touch me, do you know who I am-_

But he doesn't, or he does but can't hear anything, sense any more than what smell, taste and the ground can tell.

The world is darkness and silence.

…

 _Each desperation has a unique identity, and mine speaks in gentle tones of hysteria. My mind is a city that never sleeps; I slink down the street like a thief in the night. If I run long enough, I can forget the devils of past nightmares in which no light and no sound find me. But they won't forget me, for I am one of them._

 _I can leave the past behind, but it won't leave me._

…

He pushes against the concrete and stands teetering to the side, head pounding, legs shaking, arms shaking, everything shaking, quivering- The hands try another time, other hands, he's surrounded, he doesn't know which way he's meant to go anymore. To safety. To guidance. To sound. _Daddy…_ , he thinks desperately, but it's the wrong plea. _Foggy…,_ comes in second, and while the voice in his head is all kinds of wrong, he can't find a reason not to follow it. The office. He must go… in which direction?

He starts running.


	2. Tenebrae factae sunt

**Tenebrae factae sunt**

It's not easy to unlearn an entire lifetime of relying primarily on sight. You find yourself standing at crossroads with no idea which direction traffic is coming from and unable to tell whether or not you are in immediate danger because you don't control anything. The traffic seems to be coming from all directions. You don't even know if you're on the pavement or not. The world is smelling all its smells, blaring all its sounds, assaulting you with _noises_ and _resonances_ and _hums_ and _echoes_ and _thuds_ and _crashes_ and _jingles_ and _crunches_ and _clatters_ , and you can either take them all at once or shut them all down.

You don't know what all the sounds mean yet.

No sighted person has any idea how difficult it is to relearn everything again. How to do simple household chores. How to read. How you feel silly and stupid and slow and helpless. Just making a cup of tea. How do you pour boiling water into a mug without splashing it everywhere? Without burning yourself? How do you even know if the mug is full or not?

…

He's nine and he sits on his bed, hands gripping the raspy cotton sheets. Every morning is still a shocking experience. He continues to see in his dreams, so waking up to darkness is still perplexing. For a moment, before he opens his eyes, he still mouths a rehearsed prayer, _our Father who is in heaven, please, please_ , so when he opens his eyes and nothing changes it still hurts to be denied. He doesn't know if this is just how things must be ( _Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven_ ) or if he's being punished for something else-

 _be careful of the Murdock boys, they got the devil in 'em-_

He sits on the bed wincing at the raucous wails of the world. People laugh, cry, speak, shout and sing all around him. The substitute for sight is not invited. It doesn't help him, it just makes his world a rumble mess of chaotic impressions and he can't control them. There is no order to madness.

Some days are tolerable. They scream at his ears, sting at his nose, scratch at his skin, but he tries to shrug them all off, because if he doesn't his father will see he struggles. He will see it and he'll be so sad his heartbeat will skyrocket. Daddy will turn his head and cry silently believing he doesn't know, and he hates when his father cries. Battlin' Jack Murdock was not made for crying.

The apartment is empty. His steps echo everywhere and he wrestles with the world of noise, fighting to turn it off as he sits on the kitchen chair where he left his braille textbooks.

It's been two months.

He knows where everything is in the apartment; most of his chores are already done with uncertain hands but effectively. Still, his father doesn't know how horrified he is with himself. How he has virtually stopped eating and haven't gotten much sleep since this all started. How he paces back and forth tripping on things, having fits of crying and feeling his life is over. He's been a good child all his life, getting good grades and pats on the head, reading books and books that cover the walls of his bedroom, and they're all useless now. When he thinks of that he wants to scream. He wants to kick and shout and break things at how he'll never be able to read them again. He used to be the best student, he used to be intelligent, all his value was in hiding behind good grades ( _"Hey, I don't want you to end up like your old man"_ ) and it's now all over. It's all over.

He's tired of faking wellness, the stress so heavy on his shoulders his neck feels thick. He tries to make sense of the books in braille while the words in bumps scratch his fingertips, the world _shrieks_ at his ears, it is painful, uncomfortable, and he feels repeatedly doing this will be next to impossible. The joy he's always derived from life is _gone_ , given way to feelings of despair, hopelessness and the _horrible fear_ of contending with this indefinitely.

Matt swallows, he feels like he's ingesting glass. Aimless despair is rolling off him in waves.

He wants to cry but he's a Murdock, and Murdocks aren't supposed to give up.

His fingers go over another set of bumps, the meaning unrecognizable. They aren't words, they're just lumps of raised paper and he'll never be able to read them. The fear is gripping his throat, distress mounting in a crescendo, and he doesn't know when he went from sitting on the chair to the kitchen floor, screaming and sobbing against the tiles.

He's stupid and useless and _so afraid_.

And then his father is here. Daddy is here, collecting him from the floor, raising him to his lap and protecting him from the world. His heartbeat is wild, panicked at finding his son on the floor crying and making a scene, but the panic is made of love and not disgust.

Matt screams into him, through him, does not seem to know how to stop, and his daddy does not know how to make him. Daddy clasps his arms around Matt's small body saying nonsenses, holds him close and jumps into the dark with him, refusing to leave him alone. Mumbling soothing gibberish against his hair, rocking him to calmness on the kitchen tiles. He's not going anywhere.

And it's alright.

It's alright

…

The sprint is madness and he knows it, but he can't stop it.

Void is crashing around him; he has to dash to escape it. Maybe it's just a bubble of nothingness and if he runs fast enough to any direction he'll burst through it, so that sound and form can shape into existence again. Reality is fleeing. He's so dizzy he can barely stand let alone run, his sprint is more reeling than running. He needs to find his daddy – _please, please, please_ – before he disappears around the edges. He-

Something solid and fast strikes him and he's flung against the asphalt on his back, the whoosh of what must be car tires passing inches of his head – he's on the lane! – his glasses are knocked out of his face. Frantically, he pushes whatever it is out of his way to stand – a bike, it's a _bike_ – in order to run again, fueled by fear and desperation, head swimming, vertigo assaulting from all directions, nausea crawling his throat. Another pair of hands try to help him, touch his elbow, but he jumps sideways and runs and stumbles and _runs_.

A whirlwind of terror bordering on hysteria, existence is black and mute. The ground under his feet and the friction of the air are the only things that attach him to reality. He doesn't know where he's going as he knocks people out of his way skidding and tripping until his knees are on the sidewalk again, somebody steps on his hand, copper on his tongue, the world too wide and too cramped in a little space and he doesn't know if he's dreaming or if he never existed at all. His head throbs, his ears hurt, his eyes sting. Dizziness lurches him to the ground and his stomach flips. He must be moaning or gasping, but he can't hear himself.

 _Daddy… Daddy…_

And then the 'world on fire' slips back into place, dissolving unawareness like mist.

Slowly, perception returns, the buzz of the streets and the sound of his raspy breaths are on his ears again, even if slightly muffled. Relief is so overwhelming he nearly chokes. His senses sharpen and focus, the sounds of the city blaring wildly but well invited, space awareness coming back and he knows where he is. He _knows_ where he is. It's just two blocks from the office, not far at all, he was going in the right direction even completely lost, relief makes him more lightheaded.

"Hey, man, are you okay?"

It's the voice of a teenager, concern for a stranger. There are people around staring, some coming closer to help, others just curious. The boy is about to touch his shoulder, hesitation marking his movement pattern, but it's impossible to listen for either gentleness or veiled hostility. _I'm fine_ , he wants to say, but nausea makes him heave. The words are stuck in his throat, his own heartbeat too loud for him to focus on anything else, the breaths coming strangled and ragged and he can't get enough air.

 _No._

 _No, no, no. Don't panic anymore, don't panic, there's no reason to, it's over._

He has to get out of the streets and hide before his body decides it doesn't know how to breathe, _get up, get up, Matt_. It's not the right place for this. He's already made too much of a scene of himself for whoever was watching or got knocked down by his drunk sprint.

His brain refuses to stop calling his father.

"Call 911, Billy." It's a woman now, her voice mature and kind. He doesn't notice when she kneels in front of him; her hands are rubbing his arms up and down, up and down, shushing him. He gags. He wants to recoil – she's _not_ dad – but the hands are gentle, the voice is soothing and his body slackens (it shouldn't). "It's okay, darling. It's okay, you'll be fine."

She smells of lavender and is probably in her late fifties. The way the air moves around her says she's dressing denim and a microfiber jacket lined with faux-fur, the soft tingle of what must be steel bracelets coming from her wrists, she smoked a cigarette two hours ago. There are other voices talking around him, phones being picked, whoever is Billy is already calling 911 (they should be calling Claire). He can hear the voice of the operator asking _what's your emergency_ , but he tries to focus on the woman and her shushing so his body stops fighting him. Concentrate enough to calm down, to breathe, to be steady. The air is saturated with water, it will rain soon. The wind is freezing and he is _hot_. He shivers against her touch-

 _It's over. It's over._

 _Whatever it was, it's over._

"I-I-I'm fine."

His heartbeat doesn't have to skip for him to know it's a lie.

…

It's nine a.m. already and he's still throwing paper balls over his desk to hit the trash can, having annoyed Karen to death for forty minutes and doodled on his notepad for twenty. Matt is late and he's _impatient_. They'd planned to go over a list Brett gave him of possible future clients and he's not about to start on it alone. They're supposed to be partners, the boring stuff needs to be shared equally, not only Karen's food, old burritos and Josie's eel drinks. He tries not to be annoyed when he considers Matt is late because he's most likely overdone with his Daredevil nuttiness again. He looks at his phone, refraining from calling. Okay. It's not like an hour is too much of an office-crippling lateness.

He sighs. Today is an abysmal day on its own, with the unexpected cold that is outside and the sky so dark his bed almost effectively convinced him it was still yesterday. It's too chilly for such a sunny week and a perfect day to stay under the duvet watching Netflix, not running after imaginary clients (or thugs, in Matt's case). A thunder booms outside and he realizes a light sheen of rain is patting the window. He signs again, feeling miserable.

"Coffee?" Karen asks from outside, yawning softly for the tenth time. He shakes his head, ninety percent sure she didn't go back to her apartment again last night. With Matt skipping most of his sleeping hours scurrying around the city dressing red tights and Karen avoiding her bed like the plague, he doesn't know how this office still runs with him being the only one that still freaking _sleeps_.

He knows Matt would smell Sleepinal in his coffee half a week before he put it there, but maybe Karen wouldn't notice his shenanigans, sleep an actual night and look like a drowsy koala the next day. It would be both beneficial to her and a little funny in a preposterous way (hadn't she been accused of first-degree murder after being drugged once). He's dismissing the idea entirely when a finger points straight to his face.

"Don't you even dare," she says, nursing a huge mug of coffee. It might as well be a gallon of Coke.

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"You have this look on your face you normally have when you're planning something I'm very sure I won't like."

He makes a face. "That wounds me, Karen. I wasn't planning anything."

She rolls her eyes. "Liar."

The rain outside starts smacking the window with an open palm. Foggy imitates her and rolls his eyes too, imagining the drenched state in which his friend will open the door. Matt used to do that with an absurd frequency back in Columbia, as if carrying an umbrella was beneath him.

"I bet your gallon of coffee Matt'll get here wetter than Free-Willy."

"Hm? Why? You think he didn't know it was rainy?"

"He probably did," Foggy waves his hand in the air to demonstrate the incongruence of this all. "Not that he cares to do something about it."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," she takes an amused sip of her mug and he eyes her raising an eyebrow.

"Wanna bet?"

Karen looks at her coffee defensively for a moment but raises both eyebrows later motioning with the ludicrously big mug. "Okay, but if I'm right you'll have to hug Matt and confess how much you missed him."

"What? Why?!"

She actually manages to look straight at him while giving off the impression she is rolling her eyes again. "You've been annoying me to death with your impatience since you arrived. If I knew better I'd bring you a box of crayons."

"Now, my dear, that's totally unfair. I was here working my ass off reviewing this list to get us the most awesome, rich and virtuous clients in this city."

"Right. And the doodles and paper balls are all about case studies."

Light feet step on the corridor outside and the door opens. They stop bickering to check when Matt enters the office decidedly dry, a hideous pink umbrella in his right hand instead of the cane.

Karen's eyebrows shoot upwards again at the absurd sight, muttering to him a 'you lose'.

"You actually have an umbrella?" Foggy asks, half statement and half question, undecided between feeling glad his friend doesn't look like a drowned puppy and annoyed he lost the bet. "You must start asking people what's the color of the stuff you buy, buddy."

Matt leans the thing against one of the walls stiffly, as if his limbs are immobilized in plaster.

"Borrowed," he explains quietly, shoving his hands inside his pockets, about to enter his office ignoring further clarifications as if he isn't an hour late. Karen smirks and motions Foggy to go and meet his side of the bargain. He sighs, standing up.

"O dearest, my heart's missed thee with such fierceness it cannot contain itself!" He recites shakespearely, catching a mildly startled Matt in an awkward hug.

Matt allows Foggy's embrace, but doesn't return it. He only gives his friend a small smile that seems to hover between a grin and a grimace. Feeling the slight tremors running through his friend's body, Foggy releases him and steps back to look him over, brow furrowing.

Matt looks like the cold is really affecting him. Then again, he doesn't really seem to have dressed for it. He's wearing grey dress pants and a thin, white button-up shirt, his tie skewed. The only concession to the shitty weather is his usual grey suit jacket, which he is hugging to himself. His face seems paler than usual and he can't seem to calm his shivering. The cane and the glasses are nowhere to be seen, there's dirt and what looks like blood on the knees of his pants.

"Hey, buddy, what happened to you?"

A beat.

"I-I… I dropped my cellphone…" Matt stumbles on his words, uncharacteristically. "Had to kneel to recover it. It was…" He trails off, tapping the device on his pocket as if he only now realizes it is still there. "I slipped."

Foggy exchanges glances with Karen.

"I think you hurt your knees there," she comments lightly.

Matt seems to consider what she says for a moment but his legs nearly fold. He catches himself on the doorframe before Foggy reacts, and straightens as if nothing happened.

With that, everyone goes silent, the only sound that can be heard is the rain outside and how in some weird way they can almost hear how he trembles. A very weird sound.

"Matty, you're shaking…" Foggy states with a worried look.

"I'm-"

"If you're about to say you're fine, okay, I got it, you're fine. But I can see you're cold and your knees are bleeding." He drags Karen's chair close and pushes Matt onto it, asking her for the first aid kit in the restroom. She complies quickly, licking her lips and leaving with a concerned look.

"What're you… doing?"

"Being a mother hen," Foggy answers setting his jaw, snatching his coat from the hanger and throwing it on Matt, kneeling in front of him to roll up the legs of his pants unceremoniously. "Law is my second degree, apparently."

Matt goes quiet, allowing him to do what he wants but resting the coat on his lap instead of dressing it, as if shuddering to death is the best way to go about this. Another thunder booms, lightning illuminating the room. At the unnatural light he realizes Matt looks exposed without his glasses, slightly fainty. Foggy refuses to comment, revealing the angry abrasions on his friend's knees to the office's dimming lights. He sighs.

"I won't complain because I've seen worse."

Matt smiles briefly, as if it pains him, nodding. "You sure have."

"This isn't a Daredevil thing, is it?" He asks, voice low.

A feeble shake of the head.

"Fine."

Matt is in one of those moods in which he won't speak if he doesn't want to, and this doesn't look like his regular macho bullshit. Foggy cleans the blood with a rag, disinfecting the wounds with the medicine Karen brings and applying gauze, itching to interrogate but disturbed by the odd incessant shaking. He's about to take the coat and dress his friend as if he's a toddler when he notices the grazes on his hands too. Karen hovers behind him, looking bothered but tongue-tied.

"Seriously, Matt, what did you do?"

They're granted just another minute refusal. Definitely not in a talkative mood. Foggy reopens the first aid kit.

…

The day is spent in silence and the list isn't seen to. Matt is in his office, mute and pale, his band-aided fingers over the same paragraph on the same stack of paper for hours; Foggy and Karen pretend they're not hovering. They don't accomplish a thing all day.

About eight p.m. Matt leaves quietly with his spare cane, refusing a ride, Foggy's coat, Karen's coffee or a drink at Josie's.

He's still shaking.

…

The woman's name is Amparo. She's a descendant of Puerto Ricans and Billy is her teenage son who's battled with anxiety for the last six years.

They think they know what's happening to him, she keeps shushing him and counting his breaths as if it's supposed to help (it does) but all he wants to do is escape and at the same time lie down and never get up again. It's absurd how much it hurts to breathe.

His lips are numb.

He manages to control the nausea and get up just as it starts to drizzle. They insist he waits for the ambulance but he doesn't, he needs to go, he needs to work, _you don't know what you're talking about_. They insist he borrows one of their umbrellas because they can share one and they obviously don't have trouble breathing (Stick wouldn't; surrounding oneself with soft things isn't life, it's death. He'd walk in the rain, tough, heir of the Spartans-)

 _someday those silk sheets are gonna crawl up behind you, wrap themselves around your throat and choke you to death-_

Out of indignation, he takes the umbrella.

…

He's twenty-nine and he sits on his bed, hands gripping the smooth silk sheets. This morning is still a shocking experience. He continues to sense it in his wracked nerves, and just sitting here in silence is still horribly petrifying (never mind he can hear the world shriek outside, his own silence is louder than earsplitting rackets). For a moment, before he makes any noise, he still thinks a rehearsed prayer, _our Father who is in heaven, please, please_ , so when he heaves a shaky breath relief comes for listening – he's not being denied.

 _Is this Thy will?_

He sits on the bed clinging to the raucous wails of the world. People laugh, cry, speak, shout and sing all around him. Tonight, he wants to hear them. They scream at his ears, sting at his nose, scratch at his skin, but he can accept and embrace it all, because if he doesn't he has nothing else.

A tidal wave of impressions extends from all corners of perception until he's reconciled with reality – grounded feet and regular breaths, covering well every vulnerable part of himself to hide from nonexistence, because daddy is not here to do this for him. There is a dull ache behind his eyes and a faint ringing to his ears, but he ignores the pain expanding his senses, clutching all he can grasp with the ferocity of a scared, tiny, cornered thing. He prefers the overload of information to detaching from the world ever again.

Echoes.

Bearings.

Safety.

Confusion settles.

He could call Claire and tell her what happened, tell her he was only walking when the void crashed around him and he is too scared to crawl out of himself to even mention it, terrified it will happen again just by the active speaking of it. He doesn't know why he's so scared, Daredevil shouldn't be scared (Daredevil _isn't_ scared, it's only Matt who is).

He could've talked to Foggy, he could've approached Karen, he could've said "hey, I was going to the office when the world slipped from my grasp and I fear if I move a little to the side or take a wrong kind of breath I'll be stuck in the void forever". He'd asked Foggy for help before, he'd told Karen he couldn't do that alone ( _"You're never alone, you never were"_ ).

He doesn't.

 _I don't know what happened._

 _Somebody help me._

 _Daddy?_

 _I don't know what I did different._

 _Help, help, help, help._

He can't voice it, he doesn't know how to. The one he wanted to hear him can't. And he's too afraid to stay quiet but too frightened of losing himself again. Because his father won't be here to catch him if he falls and he still doesn't know if God hears (or _cares_ about) devils like him.

He feels so alone.

And so he does what only he can do. He impersonates Daredevil and walks into the night, because Hell's Kitchen needs its devil more than he needs himself, and Murdocks never quit.

It's easier to deal with somebody else's fear than sit shaking in silk sheets. Their worries he can dissolve into nothingness, but the devil can't collect his terrors in a glass container and beg God to be spared from them.

There was only one person who ever willingly jumped in the dark with him and he is _dead_.

And it's alright.

It's alright.

(It isn't)

...

 _Daddy,_

 _Karen put a chengyu calendar over her table, the words are printed in hot stamp and I can read if I run my fingertips over them. Last week one of the idioms read, "one day, three autumns", meaning that when you miss somebody, twenty-four hours can feel like one thousand and ninety five days._

 _I miss your protection, your tired gaze, the way you made me breathe when I suffocated in darkness._

 _You._

…

 _I will never have you again._


	3. Dolus eventualis

**Dolus eventualis**

Claire likes to think of herself as a practical person. After so many years as an effective night shift nurse there's very little she hasn't seen when dealing with humans and their idiosyncrasies, obnoxious behavior towards danger and their infinite aptitude to act like total idiots. She's recovered the Devil of Hell's Kitchen half-dead from a dumpster, for crying out loud. These points considered, when the phone rings she thinks close to nothing will have the chance to make her even bat an eyelash. Turns out this is not entirely true.

Claire puts the burner against her ear, huffing to herself and wondering if he's forgotten the fact that she's more than a hundred miles away (or why she keeps charging this damn phone). She mutters a half-hearted 'what's up' while contemplating if he assumes she's going to grab her stuff and travel miles to see to his safety. The thought is a bit more than a little absurd, but strangely still invited. She doesn't know if she's supposed to feel annoyed or giddy at it.

A sharp gasp answers her. She knits her brow, thinking, _okay, this doesn't sound any good_ , when a string of incoherent mumbles comes from the other side of the line, mildly choked. Frowning, she tries to ask him to repeat calmly whatever he's trying to say, but he's speaking over her in an array of inarticulate slurs, as if he can't hear her. This sounds bizarre and Claire doesn't really want to know why he's talking as if he's stoned unless he's stoned (but then, why call her?). Pulling a face, she tries to speak louder than him, demanding what the hell is going on but it's panicky rattle followed by distinct gurgle that his speech dissolves into, not anything in orderly fashion. She startles at the horrible sound ─ _are you_ _breathing?!_ ─ gauging what she can understand from the grating wheeze, which is nothing.

Matt Murdock can't form a sentence to save his life. Quite literally.

We'll get back to that.

…

Assault in the first degree. Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. Coercion in the first degree. Aggravated assault upon a police officer. Manslaughter in the second degree. Arson in the first degree. Attempted mur- He files the list of his (alleged) crimes away to a corner of his mind, not caring, crawling closer: _unannounced_.

As he approaches the group he takes in what he knows. They seem to be of Sicilian or Italian descent (which is odd, he thought they were the remainder of the Triad cell but oh well), apparently led by a low level boss called Rocco Violi. It's another of those ridiculously half-witted mobs of drug traffickers that think it's a great idea to take the place Wilson Fisk and his associates left vacant. Which is not, if he has any say in it.

However, tonight is a bad night for this, he knows, because his actions aren't in the right place. He hasn't followed this group's activities for the last hour just to send them to Brett's capable hands or to rid Hell's Kitchen of its criminal bastards. Tonight he left home because he just couldn't stay in the apartment anymore, having crept around it all day after going AWOL instead of going to work, his spirit flailing inside him and screeching words that should never be said ─ _it will happen again because_ _you are weak and because you're alone and because you_ _ **deserve**_ _this._

The night had been full of nightmares in which there was an attack and he couldn't sense or hear or scream, the pain gnawing at him until he thrashed on the bed sufficiently to wake up. In the dream he never got a chance to defend himself. When he awakened the anxiety and the pressure in his chest had been so intense it felt like having a heart attack. He hadn't slept for more than an hour, waking up sweating and out of breath, his legs moving like he was running; an aborted scream inside his throat as if he just found his voice, at the recovery of sound that was not there. Bolting to his feet and stumbling on the nightstand, crashing against the wall, the confusion of his senses, the void pressing at the world on fire and threatening to extinguish it-

 _No_.

He needs something, he needs reassurance, he needs calm, he needs this, and isn't it funny when his serenity is only achieved now when he's pummeling idiots and sending them careening? His place has never been among peace. Murdocks have only ever thrived in chaos.

His phone's constant babbling _Foggy Foggy Foggy Foggy_ intertwined with _Karen Karen Karen Karen_ is still hammering against his skull. They care too much, he cares too little, and he isn't worth it. (He wishes for Amparo's hands on his arms again, _it's okay, darling, just breathe._ )

The darkness presses against his mind, the silence clusters inside his throat, he needs something he can't define, and going on patrol sounded both inviting and overwhelmingly dumb when he left his window. He's too erratic. He's _danger_ tonight, and he shouldn't get closer than a mile from his suit or from anybody that might deserve a beating, for he's full of darkness and full of silence and the void can fall onto him at any minute.

He's scared shitless and admitting weakness is not in his nature.

Swinging his billy clubs, he wades into the surprised pack, scattering them in disarray as one of the sturdy billies strikes surely against a man's head, toppling him limply to the ground's cobbled surface. Immediately after he smacks another on the chin, sending him reeling out of the fight, probably with eyes rolling upwards.

Somebody tries to kick him from behind and he twists, his throbbing spine in flames. He savors the pain, powering on it to attack, hitting three of them interchangeably and in quick succession. The three men collapse to the floor before they can make sense of what is happening, their heads cracking like melons. The next two are not so lucky as billy club hits brutally against both temples. He is Daredevil tonight and Daredevil is incensed with frightened pain, and this pain drives him further instead of down. It's his only protection against acknowledging he's not well.

Bullets are flying on the corners of his perception and he's luckily dodging without a thought. The punching and the breaking are a lot more important for now than the conscious escaping from threats, and that's why he's both in danger and dangerous tonight. Nights such as this make him unfairly believe he's got nothing to lose.

His heart hurts, but it should be his head. Darkness swarms around him, threatening to make him topple flat on the floor with its weight, and he's imagining things. Suddenly he wants to answer to the phone that's probably ringing inside his apartment and tell Foggy he's afraid and he can't live in the darkness even if that makes little sense coming from a man who's been blind for the past twenty years. The void is a frightening place to exist in for however much time ─ was it minutes, hours or centuries? ─ his father is dead and God does not care about his misdemeanors. He wants to scream from the nonexistent pain.

The bullets stop coming. He's decimated a gang of drug dealers in less than ten minutes and that's not even close to enough; he's vibrating with tension. One of the men groans close to his left leg and he kicks him until a wet noise replaces the sound. He should be calling NYPD, let the police handle this. His right hand goes to the burner and dials 911; Karen's Band-Aids make his fingers hard to cooperate. The operator picks the call, but he can't bring himself to speak ─ _what's your emergency, you idiot?_ ─ he licks his lips and tries again, tongue curling behind his teeth. Someone curses in Italian in the background. He viciously kicks at a head until the voice fades to quietness.

The operator repeats the request. He disconnects the call.

…

There is blood everywhere and this is not how things are supposed to be. Ruthless and efficient have always been Cesare's traits and this brand of downfall is more vexing than he deserves. She puts the weapon down.

She knows a lot about deep wounds by now, and she thinks, dully, that Cesare is probably going to die, because there is too much blood. She doesn't think anything about that; it's a purely theoretical calculation, as though the outcome doesn't matter much one way or another.

Everything around her is separate from everything else. Her hands, which as she stares at them seem to mock her, are covered in blood that's becoming tacky. Death is surrounding her, like it's something that's always been there and will never leave, and she supposes she's intimately familiar with death anyway. Her pants have a little stippled pattern of something dark pressed into them where she was kneeling, and she stares at her knees, seeing nothing, thinking nothing.

The officer comes from behind her. "Miss, you're under arrest," he seems to say, not unkindly, and he has to repeat himself twice before she notices he's actually there.

"Ah," she stares through him, her mouth dry. " _Ma lo sai cosa è successo?_ _Cosa è successo?_ "

He's looking at her curiously. "You understand what I'm saying?" She lip-reads. "You are under arrest for the murder of Cesare Violi."

At some point she seems to have receded into Italian. She looks at him blankly ─ _Cesare's not dead, don't say 'murder' like someone killed him_ ─ and then shakes her head to clear it. "I understand," she replies, and now she doesn't know what to say. The officer doesn't need her words, though. In less than a minute he's leaving with her handcuffed and Cesare is nowhere to be seen.

…

The apartment is as quiet as always. Foggy's scent is all over the front door (he was here) and his phone is probably bursting with new unanswered calls. He approaches the kitchen counter and lays his hands against it; his fingers twitch. His whole body breaks into shudders and he doesn't know _why_.

"Hey, Galaxy," he says, breathily, and the phone whirs to attention. All he has to do is tell it to call Foggy. Maybe even Karen. Explain he didn't go to work today because he couldn't face them and say he's alright. Or, while he's at it, that he's afraid and no, that doesn't even make any sense. (But it had been one occurrence, _one occurrence_ , and he'd been blind forever, who can tell that it's not going to–)

He leaves the phone waiting for a command until it goes into standby again. The faint ever present headache blooms like blood in silk when he closes his eyes and pushes his face against his hands, his brain frantically (childishly, pathetically) calling for his father.

The night is a sleepless child and so is he.

…

There's a threshold of pain, he learned, not to be felt. No. 'Not to be felt' isn't exactly the best way to put it, because he _does_ feel it, but it's the type of pain he constantly has to push to the back of his mind. As his senses threaten to burst with stimuli whenever possible, this kind of ache is always efficiently shoved behind other impressions that are both a lot stronger and much more useful. So, up to this threshold he doesn't feel pain sufficiently to acknowledge it. It's always there, needling his brain in a way that should be uncomfortable, but it's been for ages too usual and too branded as part of existence to be picked out from the rest. Intimate and familiar as the skin between his fingers. It's been there since the accident and it will follow him quasi unnoticed to the end of his days.

It's not easy to remember exactly each and every thing Stick ingrained into him ─ there were many ─ but if Matt is completely honest with himself there were more things his old master had to force out of him than otherwise: stupid, simple things, side effects of silly boyhood.

One of the first things Stick had to train out of him was his pathetic reaction to headaches. He used to have them incessantly, as the stings of the world made him nearly mad with shock, but by the end of the first month Stick had already beaten this particular immunity into him. He would make Matt expand his senses to the highest and listen to the worst sounds humanity can produce for hours, until his ears were ringing, his stomach's contents were spilled and he was dry heaving pitifully, on the verge of tears. After weeks of this it kicked in, of course. Terrible noise equated to splitting headache, which equated to torment. His body learned to turn off its reaction to pain so that he wouldn't have to feel it. Pain tolerance conditioning by pain, which is, in itself, very clever (he bitterly congratulates Stick). So he does not acknowledge headaches anymore. At least not until his skull is cracked open.

After the painless threshold, he learned, comes the second: the threshold of safe pain. While the first one deals with the everyday hurts, the second one is designed to galvanize him into action, propel him to fight. He does notice this pain, twisting his insides and lighting him on fire, but instead of making him writhe on the floor it turns him into the actual devil. The acute and sharp quality of it makes adrenaline hum in his blood and fuels him with violence; the detachment persisting, feeding his viciousness, until his fists don't have to beat, his legs don't have to run and the world doesn't have to break if he doesn't _move_.

He learned how to associate this spectrum the hard way, being kicked several times on the ribs while down, stepped on, slashed, punched, broken, thrown against the wall. Until his stupid body understood this misery _wouldn't end_ unless he got the hell up and _reacted_ instead of lying on the ground as if enemies were supposed to give him a break. He lost count of how many times Stick had to yell at him to _fucking counterattack_ , _Matty_ until he finally found it in himself to move instead of passing out (like a moron). The second threshold is the one in which pain isn't a sign to stop until safety, so he can only allow it to kick him on the shins after he's out of harm's way. (Sometimes an oddly masochistic part of him wishes that hadn't become so easy to handle, and when the pain comes he bitches to himself just because he can.)

He makes sure the pain sticks to the second threshold. That's because the third means life-threatening injury, which he avoids whenever possible (he's a fighter, not suicidal). He's had unpleasant encounters with this spectrum three times in his life and none of them were particularly enjoyable and all were quite deadly; fresh in his mind are Claire, Foggy and a bunch of secrets being thrown on the fan to splash everywhere more or less at random.

But the last time. That is, if he can fit that into a threshold that existed before.

…

The pain is too unbelievable to exist in any category but its own. It came, it lingered and it left him agonizing in a deep pit of nothing. Alone to deal with it in a ditch of darkness and silence. He labels it the threshold of the void, and unconsciously prays that he never has to go through it again, not even in dreams–

 _our Father who is in heaven, please, please–_

but no one is listening.

…

The effects are still in here today, as he hastily makes his way to the office with tension pulsing through his bloodstream and tiredness holding him down, not having slept more than an hour for two days. His emotions are all over the place, he's getting angry at small things, like clumsily burning his tongue with the coffee and slipping the wrong shoe on the wrong foot, his throat restricting and clothes oppressing him and he wants to scream and rage at things and be self-ignorant enough not to care.

He had debated with himself calling in sick this time, but that would make Foggy and Karen more suspicious than they already were, and it wasn't like he would be able to sleep anyway. He had also pondered at least hailing a cab just to avert from taking the same steps to arrive at the building, but he is not superstitious nor overly avoidant, and if it happens again he'd rather not be enclosed with a stranger in a screaming. metal. death. trap.

He _isn't_ a scared little thing, and he _won't_ cower. The idiots he left last night wrapped as gifts in front of the precinct would uphold to that ─ the end of the Whatever Violi little reign.

He's twitchy when he pushes the traffic light button, his internal clock counting down every senseless second until the cars break, submissive to their red light. He can't tell if it's real or not, but the pain is there when he starts to cross the street, ghosting over him like wet cobwebs. It may be just his imagination or the void crashed all his thresholds into one, but the faint, constant headache rages _higher_ and makes him almost involuntarily drop another cane on the same curb.

He powers through the illogical dizziness as a man sinking in quicksand, forcing himself not to run to safety. He wants to throw up. _No_. It's psychological, he's not weak and he _won't_ cower.

He won't.

…

When Matt opens the door and steps into the office Karen instantly snaps her attention to him, promptly scanning for answers she could not grasp the other day. Matt is particularly secretive when something's up, and she is almost sure both him and Foggy still haven't realized she knows most of the stuff they try to hold from her. Seriously, guys? Like she could not put two and two together and detect the Daredevil thing faster than they could create another ludicrous excuse for this much bullshit (you can have so many car accidents in one life). She hasn't called them on it yet just because the correct timing hasn't come up. Besides that, it's a little amusing in an insulting way to see them try to spin the truth without breaking it (she will tell them, though. Eventually. Honest-to-God).

However, looking at him once more Karen doesn't think this is Daredevil-related; the muteness, the shaking, all the telltale signs of _fright_ had never been there when he was swinging fists at Fisk and all the mobs that can fit in Manhattan. That and the fact that Foggy seemed as put off as her, having refrained from contending Matt as if oddly dismayed, just to be effectively shunned all day yesterday in between countless of unanswered calls.

Matt stops at the door as he notices her, all stiff as a doll made out of tin, looking nauseated and disgruntled, stretched a bit too thin for her liking.

"Hello," she says, because she's staring and he's weirdly paralyzed, and this is getting awkward.

"Hi," he greets back, curtly, as if he's speaking through shards of glass. Without even removing his coat he tries to put a wall between them by quickly entering his office, probably trying to avoid Foggy, who's in the restroom (Foggy had been fidgety and exasperated when she arrived, having spent all night fuming after knocking incessantly on Matt's door. She's sure he's so tight he will snap at the first word they exchange if Matt remains infuriatingly mute).

She follows Matt inside his office, watching him sit on his chair a little unbalanced.

"How are the knees?" She asks from the doorstep, trying to keep things light for the time being and noticing when his grazed fingers twitch over the table at her presence. "I can see you're taking good care of my Mickey Mouse Band-Aids."

He huffs a quiet laugh, but doesn't say anything. He hasn't changed the colored Band-Aids, and from where she's standing they look slightly disgusting, but other than a weird pair of glasses that must be older than her, he is much like two days ago. Maybe a little more composed, except for the fact that most of the signs of distress are still there, and his hands jerk a little now and then, as if he's suppressing the urge to shudder even though he's still dressing his coat and a thick scarf. She's about to offer coffee and watch him refuse it when Foggy shows up behind her, seething as she presumed he would be.

"The fuck, Matt."

Matt tilts his head, shifting it in Foggy's direction with what passes for confusion or maybe for the fact that he must be two days past his bedtime. "Hello," is all he says as an answer, and Foggy loses it.

"Hello? Really?"

Matt stops where he is, blinking behind his old black glasses. "Um?"

"What the hell is happening to you?!" Foggy yells and Karen tries to see through Matt, but he only frowns, as if a particular sort of insanity has befallen his friend.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about! The last two days! You, spaced out, tongue-tied, bloody knees, snubbed phone calls!" Foggy approaches, fuming, looking like he wants to strangle someone. "You went MIA yesterday and I knocked several times on the 6A but you didn't answer! We are worried! What is happening?!"

Utter silence for some heartbeats. Matt's voice is neutral, almost toneless, when he deigns to answer. "I forgot to charge my phone," and that is it.

Karen arches an eyebrow. That must be the poorest excuse she's ever heard for a suspicious no show, and Foggy seems to agree, because she can see him raising his hands in a 'why is this my life' gesture and taking a sharp, exasperated breath.

"Seriously, dude, that's got to be-"

The jingle of Foggy's ringtone disrupts what could have been the longest bitching lecture in the history of Nelson & Murdock. Foggy looks at the display of his phone and makes a face, pointing at Matt and mumbling an 'I'm pointing at you and this is not over' before he leaves to the main office to pick the call. Karen notices when Matt bites his lip, placing his computer in front of him in a classic defensive gesture ( _let me barricade with this right here_ ).

"You know this won't end like this, right?" She asks, because if she doesn't nobody will. Matt grimaces, trying and failing to shrug with as much nonchalance as an aggravated teenager. "I don't want to force you to talk to us, Matt. But if something is happening…"

He shakes his head resolutely this time; his fingers still twitch. "I'm fine, Karen," he says, seeming to feel the tension in the air. She watches when his shoulders forcibly relax and his terseness seems to ease. He smiles and repeats, "I'm fine."

He was so taut mere seconds ago and now he's smiling and he's so good at this when he tries, the false front, that it sends eddies of unease to her guts. Her instincts screaming at her. It's obvious something is happening but she doesn't know how to reach him.

"What do I do to help you?" she asks instead, and it's instantly the wrong thing. His face closes over in something dark again, nearly aggressive; he doesn't _want_ her help, her pity. Karen shakes her head and licks her lips, "how about coffee?"

He blinks behind his old glasses and quickly all of that anger is gone, drained away. He smiles again and nods, but Karen watches him with deepening dismay as he reflexively barricades her with everything that's over his table. There is no easy way to all things Matt Murdock ─ with him the learning curve is a lot, a lot steeper.

 _I'm fine_ , he said. And if his fine looks so much like shit she doesn't want to see his not-fine. He looks darker than that one time she had had to reassure him, and back then he had already seemed to her as though ready to collapse. _You aren't alone_ , she wants to repeat, but it suddenly seems like it might be the wrong thing to say. She doesn't know what he's fighting and much less if being Daredevil means to always fight by himself.

"Okay… Um… Okay. I will-" she starts, but Foggy quickly reenters the office, his face stern.

"We'll have to continue this conversation later. Brett has a case for us."

…

It's drizzling again when they leave the taxi and step onto the sidewalk in front of Manhattan Central Booking. The building is austere and uninviting, two tall columns of concrete and signs that read 'do not enter until instructed by officer'. It's raining and the wind is blowing his umbrella to the wrong direction, Matt is stubbornly far enough from him to get wet and Foggy is not sure what he wants more: that they open this damn gate already, that his umbrella stops freaking bending or to whack Matt across the head for being difficult. The gate thankfully opens before he decides to commit assault in front of the building that processes all criminal activity in Manhattan.

According to Brett the name is Cecilia Valente. Found eighteen hours prior in the crime scene with body and murder weapon, apparently _in flagrante delicto_. And that is that. Foggy has no idea what they are doing here at a time such as this, given Cecilia's arraignment seems to be scheduled to happen in less than an hour and they don't have a clue what's going on. _Nelson, I need yours and Murdock's ass ASAP in MCB, I have a case for you, I'll explain better later_ , and that's all there is. No preparation. No details. No love. That's Brett Mahoney for you.

The officer that is supposed to provide them with Valente's RAP sheet is the human version of a headache, burning daylight like he has a long way to go still, doing everything as if each movement costs him ten bucks. Foggy glowers at him, trying to sufficiently convey his annoyance. Brett is taking more time than it's sensible to call again and explain and Matt is sitting on a bench with his back against the counter, tapping his cane senselessly against the floor, in a way that looks like a nervous gesture to anybody that doesn't know him well. ( _Do you know him well, Foggy Nelson?_ , he asks himself grudgingly.) He's about to restart his questioning when the slow-motion officer finally obliges to give them the RAP sheet. Foggy takes the piece of paper looking silent daggers, dropping on the bench next to Matt to start reading at last.

Matt is still tapping lightly and pressing his lips into a thin line. His voice is strange when he speaks, as if collapsed into a tiny box. "What does it say?"

Foggy looks at him and then at the paper, frowning. Nothing of this is any good. "She says her name is Cecilia Valente, 34, Italian, and claims to have relationship with the deceased," he worries his lower lip, trying to focus on the task at hand. "No previously recorded arrests."

"She says?" Matt asks, certainly sensing he's not done. Foggy sighs, feeling the RAP sheet weight on his hands.

"There are no documents to prove her identity, no fingerprints on the system, no family connections," his frown deepens a bit. "She's being charged with first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder following a… suspicious fire."

Matt continues tapping, probably unconsciously, a crease on his forehead. "She's most likely an illegal immigrant. And… those are some serious charges."

"Yes. I have no idea why Brett called, he must really think she's innocent. Our office looks like a wasteland because we've refused clients for a lot less."

"Did he say why she needs an attorney so close to the arraignment?"

"Not really. Something about her original lawyer dropping the case two hours ago," Matt arches an eyebrow. "I know, it sounds like weird shit, but Brett was so frantic about the fact we _had_ to be here that… I don't know."

Matt is quiet for a while, until he speaks again. "What does the report say?"

Foggy runs his hand through his hair, turning the paper and grimacing. "Apparently the deceased is called Cesare Violi, the owner of a wine bar in the Upper West Side," he watches when Matt nods with a furrowed brow at the name. "Shot in the head at close range with a shotgun. The other two haven't been identified yet, but are in critical state at Metro General, severely wounded by quite a few shotgun and pistol wounds. There isn't much information about the fire. It seems like she said the two men attacked her and Violi and she was uncons-"

He would continue, but Matt stops his tapping with a start, as if somebody smacked him with his own cane, sitting bolt upright on the bench. _Listening_.

"Matt?"

Foggy tilts his head and narrows his eyes, taken aback by the reaction, until a minute later the conversation also reaches his ears. Two corrections officers are coming from the end of the corridor, talking too animatedly for a place that is sagely nicknamed _The Tombs_.

"Ah, another thing. The Italian bitch keeps pretending she can't hear us. Speaks just like any other person, though," one of the fartsniffers says. "Did you see she had the nerve to glare at me for _inspecting_ her?"

"Yeah. Deaf my ass," the other agrees, grinning when the other mentions the inspection. "Getting tired of these fuckers pretending disability for us to cut them some slack," he has a manila folder in his hand and opens it, still smirking like the thick asshat that he probably is. "The attorney for Cecilia Valente?"

Oh, great. The woman is disabled and these stupid idiots are bashing and probably harassing her. This won't end well.

He watches as Matt's demeanor changes, pointedly hitting the cane against the floor to call their attention and immediately rising to his full height as imposing as a glacier wall. The change would be quite a shock if Foggy had never seen him do this before, but the way he stands and moves surely in the direction of the officers ─ cold smile fully operational ─ tells Foggy everything he needs to know. This is Matt in full-fledged punisher mode, and he will take this case and _ace it_ if it's the last thing he'll ever do (this reawakens memories from professors who thought it was ok to tell Matt Murdock what he could and could not do). Foggy rolls his eyes, exasperated; they don't even know the full reason for the charges or if there's any chance this woman is sufficiently innocent not to be sent to Rikers Island today, _and still_. Pig-headed.

"Matthew Murdock and Franklin Nelson, defense attorneys," Matt says, motioning to himself and to Foggy. "No, the glasses are not a fashion statement and yes, the cane is real. No need for cutting slacks, though, we can manage ourselves."

The CO with the manila folder swallows drily. The other seems to wither a little at their own indiscretion, staring at Matt as if he's never seen a blind defense attorney before (which might just be true, but in that case whatever).

After what he's just heard Foggy doesn't particularly care about their reasons for blatant ableism, but the fact that the simple act was enough to rile Matt to punisher mode proves just how weirdly raw he is. It peeves Foggy a little not to know yet what is happening, but there is no time for this now. Serious business Matt is already talking.

"I would like to know what is taking so long for us to see our client."

…

Cecilia Valente is brought shackled with other five inmates, and for a moment Foggy has no idea who he's looking for. Granted, he knows the mental image he has of all Italian women (Monica Bellucci) isn't exactly always accurate, but what his mind's ever connected with them requires the adjectives sexy, passionate and too irresistible to exist. However, as they sit in front of the Plexiglas divider, it's a very different kind of woman that he sees, as one of the COs uncuffs her and points at them. She quietly looks across the glass to Matt and Foggy, clearly not expecting to see them (clearly not expecting to see anybody at all).

She is a thin and small woman and at first glance ordinary enough looking, seeming no older and no younger than thirty years old, and not exactly someone he would call pretty or even anybody he could picture firing a shotgun at three men. She is dressed in the plain white of the inmates, a guarded expression in her face, her dark brown hair mussed around her shoulders in a strangely lovely way. This is just the first of many discoveries. Upon closer inspection, as the COs interact with her explaining the rules, he begins to realize that she isn't so ordinary. Her eyes are a clear hazel, her gaze penetrating. She seems to rarely look from the face of the person speaking to her, but fixes the speaker with an unflinching hazel stare, making the one who speaks acutely aware of his words. And when she talks, which she does not seem to do often, she uses no gestures. Her words and her mild voice appear to convey what she wishes succinctly. She has no need of gestures. It's easy to see why they would doubt she's deaf.

Thus, when she finally sits in front of them and stares directly through the glass, Foggy recognizes something very familiar. This woman isn't sweet Monica Bellucci; on the contrary, she's a fierce but disabled creature in an unforgiving and isolating world. And as soon as this thought hits him hard he knows something really important, something he needs to look at Matt to confirm and understand. Cecilia Valente knows her struggles, and she will take no shit.

"Miss Valente?"

She nods, clearly paying attention to his mouth. That's how she does it, then. Lip reading. For a moment he had forgotten they might need a translator.

"I am Foggy Nelson and this is my partner Matt Murdock. We are your substitute attorneys."

She nods again, narrowing her eyes.

"We are interested in your case," _even though we still hardly know any shit about it or you._

"I have no money," she says briskly, and Foggy wants to roll his eyes at Brett. Of course.

"That's not our interest." Matt answers bluntly back. Foggy stares back at him. _Here we go again._

"What is?"

Matt starts tapping his cane again, tilting his head slightly to the side. "The two men. You described them as the attackers of you… and a certain Mr. Violi."

"The police doesn't seem to care much about finding the truth about those two."

"Some do," Foggy argues, but she brushes it aside.

"They think I'm responsible."

A quick silence follows until Matt steps in again. "Are you?" he lifts his eyebrows, posing both hands over the top of the cane in a way that looks reverent. "A man is dead and two more are in the hospital. There was a suspicious fire that could have killed many innocent people. Serious charges."

She seems to bristle at that. "The two men attacked Cesare. They lit the fire. _They_ did this."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know."

"What really happened?"

Foggy wonders if Matt can feel the way Valente's eyes are burning holes through him. She scowls. "Exactly what I said in the report. They knocked me down, I don't remember much after this."

Matt tilts his head again, to the other side, his voice and posture so solemn he looks more like Daredevil than Matt Murdock. "Maybe that's not enough. Maybe you're hiding something."

She stands up and Foggy intervenes. The CO in the corner is eyeing her with distrust.

"Miss Valente. We can work on getting you out of here, but we need your cooperation."

Her hazel stare leaves Matt and redirects right at him, pinning him to his chair. "Why should you believe me? Maybe I do belong in an institution."

"Who are you?" Matt presses, blunt as an old knife, and Foggy pulls a face at the rawest punisher mode.

"Nobody."

"No fingerprints on file. No record. No next of kin. As if you don't exist."

She scowls again, shaking her head. "Leave it that way."

Silence fills the air again, as everybody stops speaking. Foggy wonders if this bothers her at all, and hesitates on what to do. It's quite clear something is rotten in the state of Denmark, but they don't know shit and the judge will be ready in a few minutes. Still, that is not punisher Matt's course of action.

"Who did this to you, Cecilia?"

She opens her mouth and closes again, frowning hard. However, when she's about to restart speaking the CO in the corner steps towards her, another quickly approaching and directing himself to them. "Unfortunately, sirs, the time is up."

Foggy looks at him as if he's grown another head. "What do you mean? Her arraignment is in ten minutes. We need as much time to discuss this as possible."

"I'm sorry, counselor, but that's the information I was given. Due to problems with some of the documentation, the inmate's hearing was delayed to tomorrow afternoon. The Central Booking will be sure to be in contact with you."

He's about to express how much bullshit this idiot is speaking when Matt's hand shoots up to his arm. He wants to argue, but leashes his tongue because the hold is strong and that must mean something. Cecilia is quiet.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Foggy informs her, Matt's hand still heavy on his elbow.

"You should just leave," she answers, shaking her head. "This will get you nothing."

"Have a little faith," Matt says, his voice lighter. The CO handcuffs her and she looks right at them, her hazel gaze unflinching.

She whispers something under her breath and is taken away.

…

"What is the verdict?" Foggy asks him as soon as they step on the sidewalk. There are a million questions waging war inside his head and even though his ridiculous headache is pounding, grinding his nerves. This is good, this is distracting. But this is also a little bit more than just baffling.

Another Violi. He wonders if there is any connection at all.

"She was telling the truth. For the most part, that is."

He can sense Foggy musing. He's also distracted and Foggy's distraction is even better, it means he'll be able to slip unnoticed with little effort after making all that scene. "Which part?"

"She didn't do this, Foggy," he says, blinking the headache away behind his glasses. "But she wasn't telling us even half of the truth, that's for sure."

He only realizes he's walking too fast, and in the rain, when Foggy tugs his arm another time, pulling him under the umbrella for the tenth time today. "There's something really weird with this story, arraignments in Manhattan hardly take more than twenty-four hours after the arrest. Why would her public defender drop the case two hours before the arraignment? Why would anybody target this Cesare dude? Who are the other two at the hospital?"

Matt takes a deep breath, struggling to separate his thresholds and put the pain in its correct place. Foggy's hand on his elbow grounds him. He focuses on a more important question for the moment. "And who is Cecilia Valente?"

"That," Foggy puts, wisely, "is as good a question as any. I didn't think she was the type that wielded shotguns, really."

"Because she is deaf?" he asks, because being an asshole after those idiots is basically a right, not just him trying to be a dick. The headache is starting to give him the spins heavy drinking doesn't. Stick would be ashamed.

"No, pal, I swear I'll never bet anything against people with disabilities anymore." He hums and Foggy shakes his head. "We might have a problem, do we have a problem? If we do take this case, after representing John Healy and Carl Hoffman we might be setting precedents for our once immaculate reputation."

"Objection, Your Honor, on the Healy case at least we got enough for the bills and a fax machine," he jokes, because if he doesn't he'll have to ask to sit. "I wonder if Brett thinks we have a thing for young women charged with first-degree murder."

Foggy snickers. "Come on, Matt, my malleable moral compass tells me after the arraignment we should pass this case to another less moral abiding lawyer. That is, if you don't have to take it anyway because _your_ moral compass has been overridden by your freely spinning bullshit-ometer."

"Oh. My bullshit-ometer."

"Yes. That's basically one of Daredevil's powers. I know you heard something was off. Spill it."

And he really should, or Foggy will remember there is another thing he wants Matt to spill and they'll start arguing again. He is about to be honest for once today when Foggy's cellphone interrupts yet another important conversation, making him fumble with the umbrella and release Matt's arm to pick it. The sensation both liberating and destabilizing.

"It's Brett. Finally," he's almost sure Foggy is arching an eyebrow. Reading a text, it seems, not picking a call. "He says he can't leave the precinct today. We have to go there. Has your bullshit-ometer decided?"

He smiles, nodding. "Go meet him, keep me posted. I'll go back to the office and review what I can find on Violi in the internet."

He seems to have been too obvious, because Foggy takes some time to answer, not sure if he should allow that as if by tugging his arm he can drag Matt wherever he wants. Or say whatever he wishes.

"Yeah… do that. Tell Karen we have new case."

…

 _Cosa Nostra_.

That's what Cecilia whispers under her breath. Matt isn't exactly sure if she thought anybody would hear her, but that is more than enough for him to go with. He tries to force himself to pass by the office and hang in there at least for a couple of hours in front of the computer ( _you said you would_ , his body screams for a break, but he stubbornly reminds it he doesn't acknowledge pains on the first threshold). His spirit tugs him in the other direction.

With a day lost in wait at the Central Booking, in less than an hour it's Daredevil that is stepping in the city, effectively convincing himself he can't feel a thing. It is too much of a coincidence he finds himself stumbling in men called Violi on the same waking shift (that doesn't mean much by the amount of time he's been awake, but he shrugs that thought), one of them arrested with his mob and another shot dead in a homicide full of suspicious aspects. The Cosa Nostra?

Ever since Don Rigoletto has gone into hiding the Italian influence in Hell's Kitchen, an area once owned by the Cosa Nostra, has dwindled to nearly nothing. Other mafia bosses have always been involved with many dealings all over New York, but the closest he's felt them since Fisk had been some drug dealing in Chelsea and Upper West Side, which he also saw to not long ago. He tries to focus most of his efforts in Hell's Kitchen, but it's not like he can always ignore the rest of the city over less than a square mile. For a city so overpopulated with superheroes, New York seems so crime-ridden to him it's a wonder it hasn't crumbled into anarchy yet.

He's jumping over rooftops nearly on the abandoned building he found the group in less than twenty-four hours ago. If there's anything in here that points to the right direction he'll find it.

There's something suspicious about the-

The wave of sound and light strikes him so unexpectedly and so efficiently his brain nearly implodes on the first stimulus. He's running full velocity over the roof when it happens, his leg catches on the parapet and twists; the wicked impulse sends him over the edge.

He plummets to the ground with dizzying speed, crashing face first over iron fire escape stairs in a twisted heap of limbs. The pain of the second fall is nothing. He can't feel it. It's drowning inside the ocean of agony that thunders inside his head and all his senses, bursting through his eyes and ears and the world compresses and twists every corner of perception into a flood of anguish that cannot be controlled or shaped or known by itself. There can't be anything worse than this.

It feels like fulmination, like being lit on greek fire and left to burn forever and forgotten. He has no body, no capacity to withstand or separate what he is from the agony, the fire is peeling his skin, his eyes are balls of flames, his ears are melting and nothing nothing nothing-

 _Oh God oh God oh God-_

The horrific pain goes just as it came, leaving behind the throbbing ache of the leftovers.

And the void.

There is nothing.

He retches. Blood is gushing through his nose, copper and bile on his tongue. He's lying twisted on the iron fire escape, bleeding and dirty and that's all he knows. The world on fire is gone, torn from his hands with so much ferocity nothing was left behind. He can't hear or sense and the horror is as paralyzing as a blanket of dirt. He's six feet under. Somebody buried him and forgot to check if he's alive.

 _Why?!_

He wants to ask, but at the same time not. There's no one in the void but him. He should want to run and burst through the nothingness but he feels so shocked and so horrified and so alone he can't move. He can't-

 _Matty! Matty!_

 _I'm right here with you. It's Daddy. Here, feel my face. Feel my face._

 _I'm right here._

 _I'm right here._

He twitches with repressed movements. He wants to throw himself into his father's arms and sob. He wants comfort to his despair. He wants his Daddy to run his fingers through his hair, wants him to hold him in the safe circle of arms until the world and all its careless cruelties retreats, because his father was the only protection he's ever known and he's gone. He's _gone_. He wants, so badly, to be protected again. He can't be alone with the void.

 _It's all right, Matty._

 _It's all right._

He's gone.

Abandoned, mindless. He has lost all feeling in his hands, in his legs, in his lips, can't tell if he is breathing or not, and a great flash of silver panic, edged with bitter despair, lances through his brain. He gasps.

The only protection he's ever known.

But-

Foggy is at the precinct, less than four blocks from here. He's not protection, but he's constant, caring constant and concerned yelling, and Matt is sure if he calls there is no doubt his best friend will come. There will be explanations to be made but he can handle that. He can handle that. He can handle the truth. He can-

His hand goes to the burner holder on his leg, shaking, his fingers numb, some certainly broken, he doesn't care. It's too hard to think. He always calls Foggy using the voice command of his regular phone and he can't remember the number by memory. He can't remember and he almost says 'hey, Galaxy' by mistake and how will he call if he can't remember? The despair is gripping his throat and he nearly lets out a sob. Or he lets out a sob. He can't hear it.

His fingers are too numb against the tiny buttons of the burner and he presses the send button by mistake in the contacts list. He can't see, he can't listen, but there is no doubt who the phone is calling. There has ever been only one number in his list to call. She's not protection but she's safety. She's cure. She's-

Hitting the end button should be simple, but he fumbles with the device and instead of hanging up puts it against his ear and starts to speak or tries to speak or- he doesn't know. He can't hear himself and it feels like his mouth is not working as it should, he can't form the words and he wants to lie down and wait for her to pick him and fix him because she cares if he hurts. _Somebody_ … But Claire shouldn't have to listen to that. She left to escape the hole he created in her life. She doesn't deserve this.

He disconnects the call.

…

 _I've grown up in a world of compulsory resilience, muffled gasps and tip toeing blindly around broken glass. I have insignificant worries and unsorted feelings that knot my insides. I have tangled thoughts stuck on infinite repeat. I have little love for myself and I forget to breathe if I don't focus._

 _I am made of glossed-over lies and termite-eaten walls. I am built of broken paper cups and massproduced fake art and you can't know me because I won't let you._


	4. De Profundis

**De Profundis**

When Foggy arrives at the 15th precinct, it's the weirdest of the news that reaches him. He stares at the young officer on the other side of the counter for a time that is considered a lot longer than normal because the guy just must be on drugs.

"What do you mean he's off duty? I just received a text from him asking me to come here."

The officer looks at him with an unfair suffering sigh, like he's having to re-explain something really simple to a very stupid individual and that he's not even impressed because this shit happens every single day. The guy looks into Foggy's eyes and speaks to him as slowly and distinctly as though he is explaining the Rule against Perpetuities to a demented puppy. "As I said…" he says, "Sergeant Mahoney…" he says, "is off duty…" he says, "today and tomorrow," he says.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Foggy ignores the remark and shoves his phone's display in the officer's face. "Look! He told me to come here!"

The patience is over, it seems, because the guy isn't even making an effort to look less bored now, effectively ignoring the device that's almost smacking his cheek. "He returns in two days. I'm sure he'll have a perfectly reasonable explanation by then. With that said, bye."

"But that's crazy! He called me!"

"That's really terrible of him. Next!" The officer says in monotone, calling for the next person in line, a hippie dude that seems to be complaining about a cat stealing his dinner. If that even makes any sense.

Foggy huffs in indignation, dialing Brett's phone. He isn't supposed to call if the guy's on duty, but that doesn't seem to be the problem right now, only Sergeant Mahoney's apparent schizophrenia. He'll kill Brett if he's at home with his legs over the coffee table drinking hot cocoa. Oh, but he will.

…

On her solid but somewhat uncomfortable chair in the staff break room of St. Peter's, Claire shifts with increasing anxiety and tries to quell what appears to be her dread-induced fatigue. Sighing, she reaches up and pushes down against the painful, swollen skin around her right eye, a ritual she has adopted over the years at the ER in order to keep herself awake. It is marginally more effective than drinking so many cups of coffee that she's able to hear colors, but less exciting. A hiss escapes her at the self-inflicted pain as it jerks her back into full consciousness.

Getting herself worked up inside her job probably isn't the brightest of ideas, but the way Claire figures it she has so many worries already that one or two more probably won't matter. In all frankness, she is a mess. She isn't even certain she will be able to go back to work without injuring someone in the process with her lack of attention; she almost reopened a man's wound when the burner started ringing inside her pocket. It was funny, really, that he'd decided to call her exactly in the same moment she'd been wondering how he was, while stitching another senseless idiot that had been close to death when arriving at the ER. Hearing his panicked voice while a body lied bleeding and her gloves were stained with red had been the funniest part. _Haha, yes_. Terribly amusing, in the same way that a basket of strangled puppies is cute.

Huffing with fear-stained annoyance, Claire struggles to put her scattered thoughts in some kind of order, because even though she is sitting in the break room with a phone that she shouldn't still have waiting for the opportune moment for him to call her back, she is still not all certain life is being fair.

God! Stupid Matthew Murdock! Stupid, stupid Matt, who thinks he is so goddamn invincible that he just... _ugh_ , that he just continues to do whatever he is still doing, punching thugs and trying to imprison all the criminals Manhattan has to offer, as if it were even possible for a single human being to dispel all evil in mankind. Because obviously _he_ could never be in any danger.

This situation is so unfair she wants to scream.

Fear and worry are gripping her throat and she would feel righteous to bash his silly head with her baseball bat (after making sure he is not dead or dying) if she had any chance at all to do something. He does not get to call her in these circumstances and not pick her calls afterwards, this is something simply _not done_ and she can't take this type of shit at this point in her life. _Oh God_ , is he too far gone to pick her calls?

She fumbles with the burner and dials for yet another time, the phone connecting to the line and the call dwindling and ringing out again; a new message from the provider saying that sorry, this line has no voicemail.

She wishes now she'd kept his friend's number in her cellphone, but at the time she hadn't wanted to tangle herself any more than necessary to only-human-Matt-Murdock; it had already seemed she was too inextricably attached to the Man-in-the-Mask to do that, more than it was appropriate or good for her own well-being. More than she should be. More than she could be. Certainly more than she cared to admit.

But thing is now only-human-Matt _is_ in danger, she has no way of contacting him or anybody that cares, no way of knowing where or how he is and she's in Albany, for Christ's sake, more than a hundred damned miles away.

What was the point of him calling her, really? Or was he fading so fast he couldn't remember she is miles away, completely incapable of finding him? He seemed so disoriented and in pain, his words slurring and making absolutely no sense, odd sound of liquid choking him – _it was blood_ , her brain unhelpfully provides – and he may be dead by now, for all she knows.

Dread grips her in a strong clutch as Claire dials for the hundredth time, shaking so badly she can hardly make her fingers find the correct buttons. He can't be dead, he isn't dead, because she's the only one he allows to fix him and he can't do this to her while she's so far, and why in God's name is she so distant from him? Why did she come to this damned place if it meant leaving him unprotected, if it meant leaving him to bleed by himself?

The image of only-human-Matt lying motionless on the floor of his apartment, his friend freaking out and babbling nonsenses, his body so cold and so white and so much blood it could make her, an ER experienced nurse, blank. For a whole minute she'd had no idea what to do.

His friend had shouted for her to _do something_ and she had been incited into action – calm and proficient – while on the inside she'd been screaming and kicking, hollering at him to _do not do this to me, you bastard_ , and that had made her decide to leave. She thought she couldn't take to see him so close to death anymore – little did she know that not seeing would make things worse, not easier. She should have known. Not seeing had never made him look any better.

 _I can't love someone with a death wish._

"But I didn't have to love you, did I?" She asks herself quietly, holding the burner between fingers that shake too much. "I only ever had to be there."

 _It's not my responsibility to keep you safe._

"I didn't _have_ to keep you safe," her voice falters as she puts the phone down. "But I _wanted_ to…"

Claire sits in the silence. There's not much she can do from where she is but this. She's never been a religious person, her mother has always been the one to love what she cannot see (and maybe this is the trick, it seems). There's no one in the break room save for her, she's too far away to make a difference, so she gets up from the chair, kneels beside the table and _prays_.

…

Isolation has the quality of a mind-numbing thing – he's learned through life – a sort of thing that knows no equals to.

It's been some time but he can't tell how much. The world doesn't exist. He tries to get up on all fours and _move_ , but a jolt shoots through him, from his toes to the top of his head, forcing him to lie down and curl up again, dry heaving, blood restarting to run down his nose. His eyes fly open and he feels his teeth clench, but there is no sense or sound to this pain. Struggling for air, Matt braces himself against the cold metal of the fire escape as his body thrums with after-shock so powerful that it shakes his heart. The burner slips from unfeeling fingers.

The silence allows nothing, his thoughts jumble, his mind in disarray.

It had been so stupid to assume that calling anyone would be a good idea, Matt feels the nothingness weigh heavy and dark over him, constricting, and there isn't air in the void.

 _This will be over soon_ , he thinks desperately. _This will not last forever. It didn't the last time, oh, please don't let it last forever this time._

Everything seems as though it is not real, and he is afraid, so afraid that the world is disappearing at odd angles that he can't sense against the throbbing pain and the roiling fear. The metal of the fire escape is freezing against him and everything else is either numb or nonexistent. Dragging trembling fingers over iron, he lets his hand trace the pattern of the metal, his stomach lurching at the thought that this can be the rest of his life, at the thought of what he will do if it is, what he might do, what is real and what is his mind in panicked mode. There's faint taste of bile and copper in his tongue, blood leaking in. He can barely breathe.

 _Don't think._

He can't stay here, he needs to move, to get up, to run to safety and how-

The touch on his shoulder comes from behind him and isn't neither tentative nor cautious. It is purposeful and determined, knows what it's doing as it shakes him a little, setting Matt's nerves farther on edge, his near none perception going haywire. A hand clenches around his upper arm, another around his shoulder on the floor, and somebody pulls him up, sitting him precariously on the fire escape and proceeding to jerk him up.

It is the nightmare come to life, he's senseless and in danger and his muscles are made of lead.

His heart pounds all over his body, fear and longing and a desperate denial beating against the cage of his skin as he tries to shake himself free but his body is too numb to struggle efficiently. Breathing hard, he tries to yank himself out of the grasp, but he's too weak and in too much pain to succeed, soaking with cold sweat, blood running freely down his nose and the world is overwhelmingly dark and quiet.

Air scraps down his throat, scratches his lungs, claws at him from the inside out, and he tries to reach behind him, free himself, but the hands are strong and drag him over the edge of a window, his spine connecting with hard surface and pain shooting down his lower back. He clenches his teeth to fight the trembling of his stomach and flails wildly, but the blood in his nose is starting to choke him again and the person holds him tightly from his weak resistance.

The fight is nearly impossible and all around him the dead quiet pours in.

….

 _Señor Dios, lo toma bajo tu protección, que tus ángeles lo protejan. Hoy te pido que lo proteja del mal, que seas un escudo alrededor de el, que sea librado de peligros e de personas malas. El está bajo tu cuidado, que su vida esté firme._

 _Protegelo de la maldad, de la violencia, porque sé que lo amas._

 _Amén._

…

In all seriousness, until right now this day has comprised of a huge load of shit. Brett must be playing a special joke on him; it's most likely that, he decides. He must be in one of those rooms in the precinct laughing his ass off at Foggy, looking at him through a system of cameras. That or Foggy doesn't know what must have possessed Mahoney to call him frantic to run with Matt to MCB for a case he has no idea what's going on and that is as shady as some areas in East Harlem, just to make him run in this wild goose chase now after the information Brett said he would give. _Why_ can't he pick his goddamn phone?

Foggy hasn't slept for more than a few hours during the night – _why must that be, Matt?_ – and he can feel the drags of the day already starting to cloud his good judgment. He isn't like his co-workers, who can obviously work very well with a ridiculously low amount of sleep (he is actually human, _thanks_ ), and the whole ordeal with Fisk has worn his life batteries for a period of time he's decided to call more than appropriate for the next decade. Turns out he needs his beauty sleep, so sue him. He can already feel some senseless part of him giggling with tiredness, thinking: _less than three hours of sleep, I feel great! Let's go do something! Let's go drink an eel! Let's go kill a dude!_ Well, nope.

He gives up on calling Brett for the time being, deciding to tell Matt what's going on and see what he's found on Violi. Which turns out is a nonsensical idea, because why would Matt pick his phone now of all things, if he hasn't been doing that for the past forty-eight hours? Annoyed, he calls the office. Karen answers the phone on the second ring, and isn't that refreshing?

"Nelson & Murdock, attorneys at law, how can I help you?"

"Karen, I need to talk to Matt, is he there?"

"Hey, Foggy. No, he didn't come back here. I thought he was with you?"

Of course. Why would he.

"Okaay. Thanks, Karen. We're not going back today, so lock everything up, will you?"

"Okay?" She seems to have caught something in his voice. "Is everything alright, Foggy?"

"Just peachy."

"There's something going on with Matt, I know, will you talk to him, please?"

"I'm trying," he answers, and wonders if he is, for real. He shouldn'tve let Matt escape so easily back at the MCB. "I'll catch you later, Karen. Gotta find him first. Oh, and if Brett calls before you lock it up, tell that son of a whore to call me, will you?"

"Alright."

He hangs it up and tries to call Matt again, with as much success as the last hundred thousand times. This won't make do. He needs information and he needs it _now_ , because camping in front of the precinct won't bring him any answers. So he pulls his last card and calls Bess.

Bess answers the phone on the tenth ring.

"Who is this and why are you calling me during my soap opera?"

"It's Foggy, Bess." Trust her to have her snark turned on 24/7.

"Franklin? You know better than to call me during one of my soap operas."

Foggy rolls his eyes. "I'm sorry, I would never call you during _The Haves and the Have Nots_ if it weren't important."

"Be quick with it, Jim Cryer is on screen and I wanna see what that son of a bitch is spinning."

"Absolutely. Is Brett there with his feet on the coffee table drinking hot cocoa?"

"Are you sober now, Franklin? Of course he isn't. He's on duty today."

Something in Foggy's stomach goes slowly cold. This is not right. "Totally sober, Bess. Are you sure he didn't arrive very quietly?"

She doesn't miss a beat. "I'm very sure. Are _you_ sure you're sober? He'd never be here on duty day. Ask his partner, Willis and leave me alone, I need to see if Candace will find out the shit that's going on here."

"Alright, Bess. Give me Willis' phone, will you?" She recites from memory, clearly paying more attention on the TV. "Thanks a million."

"No worries, Franklin. It's been some time I don't see you and Brett playing," she says, as if they were four. "Come over with Matthew one day, I'll make you cake and we can drink some margaritas. You're much more fun pissed."

"Can't stay drunk, love. Neither my wallet nor my liver would permit such extended debauchery."

"I miss the cigars."

"I promise I'll get you some the next time. Later."

He needs to call Willis. However, he's leaving the precinct when another call finds him. He puts the phone against his ear and his eyes widen. He needs to find Matt. _Now_.

…

"Who are they?"

"Franklin Nelson… and Matthew Murdock."

"The names don't ring a bell. Am I supposed to know who these two fuckers are?"

"Not really, _capo_. Unless you read the news very attentively during the whole Wilson Fisk trial. They were the attorneys of that one Carl Hoffman."

"Hoffman?"

"The whistleblower."

" _Comprendo_. Fisk was a baby, to be topped by one masked clown and two little lawyers. Are these two even competent?"

"They managed to get him to testify and be sent to witness protection instead of Rikers. They did alright."

"Not overly exceeding, then."

"No. Their law firm is actually very young, registered seven months ago. Their practice license is also due to that time."

"Tot lawyers fresh out of their bar exams."

" _Si_. Should we interfere?"

"No. Let's see where this is going for a while, but speed up the process a bit, _capisce_? This tardiness annoys me."

" _Capisco_."

"What of Rocco, the bastard?"

"Arrested with his men, _capo_. Two of them in the hospital, all the merchandise burned."

"Who did this?"

"…"

"Who _did_ _this_ , Gio?"

"…Daredevil, _signore_."

"…"

"Are we to wait in this matter, too?"

"No. I'm done watching this clown burn our business. He's probably the one who blew our dealings in Chelsea too. Bastard thinks he's the king of Midtown West? He is bound to return to the compound. Set your men in the vicinities."

"What are we to do with him, _signore_?"

"What else, Gio? _Burn_."

…

His body is pulled through the edge of a window and, thrashing madly, the man loses his grip on him and Matt lands on carpeted floor in a confused sprawl. He scrambles to his feet, hands quickly holding him fast. The silent darkness swells in his brain, down through his spine to the rest of his body, igniting the length of his bloodstream, and, drawing his strength, he jams his elbow on the person behind him with a feral shove, fingers finding purchase in a wrist and yanks-

The man's body collapses to the floor and with his impulse he's jerked forwards too, ending up on his knees. Blood doesn't stop leaking from his nose, splinters crack through the stillness of his world. He's arching, his breathing too fast, blood dripping down his chin and the man stops trying to touch him.

For a moment Matt freezes, straining to feel what he needs in the cacophony of silence. He's still too weakened by the void and his arms almost buckle; there are strange tears of effort and rage trembling at the corners of his eyes, but they don't fall. _Leave me alone_ , he thinks, distant, disjointed, all quivering muscles incapable to halt their shaky frenzy. He feels ill. _Leave me alone, please, help me God, please, I'll be good, I'll be good_ , he begs, the plea blotting out all other thoughts. _Leave me alone._

He tries to move away, unbalanced, his mind burning blue static, fear and disbelief crowding in as the absence of contact to anything makes his hands find panicked fistfuls of the man's shirt and he holds, nearly wrenching the fabric asunder, raging and terrified at the attacker, but unable to let go or do anything anymore. He can't be alone with the void and he feels the world open beneath him, yawning wide, and he hangs, suspended, bloodless and cold, clenching his fingers on the fabric not to fall through vast emptiness.

 _God-_ And it's then that Matt registers the sound of a high keening whine, full of air and anguish, in the back of his own throat. He is listening. He is… He was so crazy he hadn't realized the world on fire had come back. For a second he knows nothing but a relief so powerful that his limbs succumb and he is suddenly slumped on the floor, his head still anchored in the darkness, his fingers fastened to the man's shirt and he is trembling so much it's a wonder he hasn't splintered in fragments-

 _Oh God thank you, thank you, I'll be good, so good, thank you, please, thank you, good thank you–_

His heart stumbles in his chest. He can sense, he can hear, and the sounds and tastes assault him all at once – the blood trickling inside his mouth, the old carpet on the floor, the skin of the man (he is old, no younger than sixty years old, but he's not afraid for himself due to Matt's violence, quite the contrary, he's afraid for Matt-). He waits for the old man to sit up, to say something, to remove Matt's hands from his shirt, kill him, or do anything at all. He keeps waiting. The old man doesn't move. Matt licks his dry lips and tries to grab enough air to speak when the voice reaches him.

"Young man?" the old man whispers urgently. "Can you listen to me now?"

Matt can't deem to answer.

For a moment, the old man is just as immovable as Matt, and then he shifts, his hands reaching over Matt's shoulders and Matt flinches, but doesn't move. Panic trembles under his skin, urging him to scream, to run, or to do something, but he crushes it ruthlessly, struggling to breathe. Now he can sense, he is liberated, he can run out the window back to the world, but he feels the void's after-effects fill his body like a stormy night beneath the shrouded sky. His spine is as hard as stone.

 _Get up, Matt. Get up. Fuck you, get up, move, move._

"Yes," he finally answers, and a damp, choked laugh, desperate and high in his throat, escapes from him. It doesn't even sound like his voice. He is so far away, lost in this unreal dream that still feels real. He can't think. He hurts so much he can't feel his brain.

"You're bleeding quite a lot," the man says, allowing him to continue to grip his shirt, getting up and reaching tentatively towards Matt's elbows and jostling him up too, effortlessly. "Let me help you," he says, and Matt starts as if really awake now, struggling to swallow the terror and pain, to keep it inside where it will never find him again. He feels it clawing up the back of his throat. He feels himself begin to crumble. He lets himself be led because this is better than having to move on his own. His brain is stuffed with plush.

The old man guides him to a couch, taking most of his weight while he slowly, slowly comes back to himself, whispering:

"I'm sorry…"

 _It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, Matty…_

…

She spends her second night in The Tombs. The officers can't be any less accommodating and the place is a refrigerator. The other inmates across from her can't do much more than ask for toilet paper and wrap it around as many limbs as they can, even though the thin layer of paper provides very slight insulation from the cold cells. They look like mummies in the tombs. She wonders if she should be giggling at that.

She sits quietly in the bench, trying not to slide off it. The thing is made of some kind of polished metal that makes it extremely hard to lay down on without sliding off. She looks at the people all around the cell, making idle talk and cracking jokes, from the silence of her world. She wonders if Cesare is dead. She wonders if she'll ever set her feet in Sicily again. Why would Luciano send her two innocent attorneys? Was that the plan? What are they expecting of her?

Someone pats her on the shoulder and she starts. One of the officers is trying to talk to her, it seems. They still don't believe she can't hear them. She wonders what that is supposed to mean.

She gets up and walks to the cell bars avoiding stepping on legs of other people. They said her arraignment is supposed to be only in the following afternoon, so what do they want with her? She wonders for a moment if Gio has killed the two attorneys too, just like he did with Ford, the public defender. One of them is even blind.

She approaches and the SO seems to have forgotten yet again that if she isn't looking straight at him she has no chance to understand what he's saying. It takes three minutes for the information to be passed through, and it's not what she is expecting.

"Get ready for your arraignment."

…

The old man's name is Alexander Howard. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, commander of a battalion of the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam War, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General William Westmoreland as a result of his actions during the Battle of Ap Gu in 1967. During the battle, Howard's troops had become pinned down by a Viet Cong force that outnumbered US forces by three to one, and in an attempt to survey the battlefield he'd boarded a helicopter and flown to the point of contact. His helicopter had been shot down, and two days of bloody hand-to-hand combat had ensued, with him landing amid a hail of fire and doing whatever he had been capable to survive and protect his men. The terror of the war and the fear had branded him so incapable to cope after all that, that life had seemed it'd never be the same again. But he had powered through it. Saved his men, come back to his country, raised his children and loved his wife.

Howard tells him his story while attempting to calm Matt down and settle his nose back to place in a way that won't hurt him more than he already is. He doesn't ask Matt to remove the mask (he had forgotten he was dressed as Daredevil), just tilts it a little, setting Matt's head backwards and dabbing cotton gently to stop the bleeding. He'd come back home from a group session of veterans just to find Daredevil wheezing on his fire escape (he hadn't said _Daredevil_ , he'd said 'the young man who returned the neighborhood I'd longed to protect from the outskirts of Vietnam back to peace').

 _I know what you're feeling_ , Howard says. _I understand. I understand. It may feel like all the world is compressing your chest, but that is not true. Be calm, it's not your fault, don't hurt yourself._

And he can breathe again.

…

Foggy finds him curled up on the sofa. Matt knows he is beached at the top of the couch and canted at a precarious angle (as if he has been thrown there), but he doesn't make the effort to move. He just lifts his hand a little when Foggy approaches, signing to him he knows he's there. Foggy draws nearer and leans over him, clearly inspecting.

"What happened to your face? Wait. Don't tell me. Were you daredeviling when I thought you were working on the case?"

Matt ignores the inspection because everything hurts and he won't move if he doesn't have to. He frowns at the ' _daredeviling_ '. He has a verb now? And a stupid one at that? "I was working on the case," he says, because he was. (In a way.)

Foggy throws himself on a cushion, noticeably annoyed. "Karen said you never made it back to the office. Cut the crap, Matt, you were out there punching thugs. At least have the grace to admit it."

"I wasn't fighting. I fell. On the stairs." (And, to his chagrin, he isn't even lying.)

"On the stairs," Foggy repeats, and his voice right now is so skeptical of everything in Matt's existence he might as well be Stephen Hawking.

"Yes."

"You," he's almost sure Foggy is pointing at him, "are a lying liar who lies."

Matt makes a pained face and closes his mouth, his head hurts too much to argue. Foggy continues. "I thought we were past the 'I fell while doing insert inane activity here'."

A short pause.

"I have a headache."

"You fell down the stairs because you have a headache? You expect me to believe that shit?"

"It's not a common headache, Foggy. It's a little bit more insistent."

"You expect me to believe you fell on the stairs because you have a migraine?"

If his head weren't hurting so damn much he would roll his eyes.

"It's not like that. I've had constant headaches since the accident and never had a problem dealing with them. It's just that…" he stops, swallowing dryly, the pain needling him. "It's been a little harder to stand it these days. I was dizzy, I slipped. That's all."

Foggy goes quiet for a moment and Matt instantly knows he said too much.

"Are you telling me you've been through chronic pain for twenty years?"

Matt sighs, slowly sitting up. "When you say it like that it sounds worse than it is. It's just an insistent little pain, a bit annoying, nothing else."

"That made you so dizzy you fell on your face down the stairs."

"That's beside the point. The thing is-"

"No, I don't think it's beside the point at all." There is a bite in Foggy's voice and Matt shuts up, trying to find a position that doesn't make his spine throb in retaliation. "Jesus, I don't even know if I prefer that you're lying."

"I'm not lying," he huffs in annoyance.

"Then you're in enough pain to fall down the stairs, which isn't much better," Foggy reasons, and Matt wants to cringe. "After all the shit I've seen you power through, if this damn headache is doing _this_ number on you, tell me what stops me right now from taking you to the hospital to have a CT scan?"

Matt starts at that, feeling his temper climbing. "My free will?"

"For God's sake, Matt! Can you be sensible for once? I know you're going through something right now that you don't want to tell me, and fine, it's not like we have a signed contract of best buddies in which a clause specifies you have to tell me every single thing that happens in your life, but, _goddamnit_ -"

"Langua-" Matt starts to intervene, but Foggy cuts him.

"-you don't get to shun me like this anymore! I doubt you have even taken a single Tylenol for this crazy headache you're having and that's-"

"That thing tastes like burning car tires-"

"-batshit crazy! That you'll prefer to get to the point to roll down the stairs and break all the bones of your face while you're-"

"You're exaggerating, Foggy-"

"-daredeviling instead of working in this absurd case Brett gave us and-"

"There you go with this ridiculous verb again-"

"-Brett disappeared, Willis doesn't answer my calls and the MCB's just called us saying Valente's arraignment will happen in ten minutes and we're not even close to-"

"What…?"

…

When they get to MCB Matt's head is buzzing so loudly he can hardly make it out of the cab. The pain and the lack of control rake at him because he can hardly separate the thresholds. For a moment, he envisions himself in the trenches of Vietnam and tells himself he has to do this or the ones he's supposed to protect will suffer. He wonders if Howard has thought about the same.

Foggy hasn't realized his disorientation yet, and schools him out of the cab and under the umbrella with the ease of habit. The rain falls softly over plastic, but the drops are loud inside his head. This isn't the void, it's just a headache, why is he suffering so much with it?

It's late at night and this is not right. Of course, MCB is one of the only Central Bookings that are supposed to work 24/7, but arraignments at this hour are as common as trustworthy mobsters. This is not customary, someone is trying to get at this woman, he is going through this blindly – _hah_ – without being capable of finding information before this mess and his body is fighting him. What the hell is going on?

They make their way through the corridors fast enough to make him dizzy, when a phone rings. The ring is so loud, ricocheting through the walls, that it makes him nauseous. Saliva collects in his mouth and his head spins. Foggy curses and answers the call, halting their frenzied run and Matt leans slightly against the wall, breathing deeply.

"Willis!" Foggy says, shooting his arm up in a 'finally!' motion. "I've been trying to contact you like crazy!"

Matt swallows, tapping his fingers over his wristwatch. They have two minutes. If they don't go right now the judge will start the arraignment without them. He tries to focus to listen to the other side of the conversation, but his senses only return with static. He is so nauseated he can barely move his head.

"What do you mean?" Foggy asks, his voice rising, slightly panicked. "Shit!"

"What is it, Foggy?" He manages, through lips that seem sewn.

"Yes, yes, I'll talk to you later! Keep me posted, okay?" Foggy finishes the call, walking in circles in a frenzy for a moment, until returning to where Matt is barely standing. "Matt! What the fuck! Brett is missing!"

And it's all he hears before he keels over.

…

" _Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!"_

 _Psalm 130:1-2, NRSVCE_


	5. Per legem terrae

**Per legem terrae**

They lead her through the corridors towards the courtroom by spoken instructions, and that would be comical if it weren't so frustrating. Her wrists are shackled to her waist and she walks carefully despite the corrections officer behind her urging her to move faster, an impatient hand on the small of her back shoving her forwards now and then in little pushes, reinforcing whatever useless directions he thinks he's giving her. This is a dangerous position, she knows; if she walks any faster she'll topple forwards like a badly balanced bowling pin. The shackles are short and uncooperative, the pushing isn't helping and her hands will have no way to break her fall if she tumbles. Uncharitably, she wants to whack the CO and his futile directives on the mouth.

They luckily get to the courtroom with no incidents and Cecilia isn't really alarmed to enter and find it nearly empty. She isn't fooled about what a courtroom must look like, and surely, there is the prosecutor sitting by the table on the left, slightly annoyed to be here at such hour (it _is_ late) and there is the courtroom clerk, waiting for the judge to announce the proceedings for the arraignment. (He looks bored and marginally sluggish; somebody must have taken him out of a nap for this). However, the sensation of emptiness should be startling for the fact that the table on the right is empty, bereft of young, semi-benevolent, _pro bono_ attorneys.

She isn't shocked, she isn't even surprised. They killed Ford, the public defender, fairly quicker and she hadn't even toyed with the idea of letting him into those two little words. He'd had no clue of what he was walking into for a slim paycheck and she accepts the fact that her word of warning is what rendered the defense table empty now. _Cosa Nostra_ , she had whispered, and expected them to either be incensed by that piece of information or, if they really were smart, to run, run away, to a very, very far place from her. Something had ensued.

Then again, there is the fact that the table is empty, and she reflects if she should be feeling something about this, even if she is the one who made sure this would happen. Nothing arises, though. Cecilia stares at the empty table with distant coldness, the common detached bareness of her world, and when the CO pushes her again she doesn't even want to lash out at him anymore, simply walking and sitting down on one of the chairs by the defense table. Serenely, agreeably, on her own volition.

The prosecutor eyes her for a second with his eyebrows furrowed, probably wondering where her lawyer is, and she gives him a bemused quirk of lips for that. Years gone by the fact that all Americans apparently have this democratic belief that everyone deserves to be defended still surprises her. With this amusing idea what they end up getting are people who grow totally confused when they have nowhere to turn to.

 _Have a little faith_ , the blind one had said, and she does snort now. She'd once prayed and hoped to be listened to by someone she could not hear, but there is no all-hearing God for which to bestow the lawyer's blind faith upon.

There has never been one.

…

The chief does not want to hear him.

He argues, he yells, he despairs, but Captain Reuss is as set as stone: adamant and unyielding. _We're not jumping to wild conclusions, officer_ , is what he says, but he doesn't understand there is no time for that. Time is of the essence, time is the key to all things, because if Willis waits a second more Brett will _die_. So he does the last thing he can do: he draws the badge and the law, for little chances has a men marked for death and these are the ones that _exist_.

He needs Franklin Nelson and he needs Stacy Dolan.

 _May God have mercy._

…

It's not every day that you have two passages through Manhattan Central Booking, less than three hours of sleep, a late call for an arraignment, and your best friend and business partner –who is the most capable person to take pain without a flinch that you know – keeling over the floor in front of you.

Foggy's eyes, which are already wide with the news Willis just gave him, go impossibly wider when his wrecked train of thought is overrun by the most powerful of the best-friend-instincts, engraved into his genetics through generations. Before he can detect which part of his brain is responsible for this reaction, he speeds towards Matt to break his best friend's fall. Not that he's exactly successful, though. Matt face plants on the polished floor of The Tombs, his upper body subsequently jerking in horrible spasms as he heaves and seems unable to lift himself. Foggy's mind is too terrified to act on anything other than pure instinct, and he quickly kneels and hauls his friend's torso from behind, pulling Matt's back against his chest, mindful of the gush of disgusting vomit that's spewing through his friend's lips.

Matt convulses against him, gasping shallowly, and Foggy has to hold nearly stronger than he's able in this difficult position, or Matt will soil both of them. The glasses fall, landing on the vomit. Whoever is going to clean them will take great pleasure in it (he has the passing feeling it's gonna be him), his mind is in overdrive and he can barely register the words that are tumbling out of his own mouth, a stunned sequence of oh-my-God-Matt-what-the-hell-Jesus-Christ- _shit-shit-shit_.

The fit is sudden and violent but quick. In a matter of seconds the bout of vomit ceases and Matt abruptly shakes himself free of Foggy's hold, tumbling to the side precariously, his hands on the dirty floor barely supporting him while he gags in between hacking coughs that don't belong inside him (as if it's mandatory that he steadies himself on his own). Foggy stares at the repulsive floor and then at him, open-mouthed, hands hanging in the air ready to catch if he's needed.

"The… the arraign-" Matt mumbles inarticulately, the color leaving his face, still nauseated but straining to keep it down. "We have… we have to…" he makes a low croaky sound with that, covering his mouth with a filthy hand, but for a moment Foggy just stares because this has been indeed a very, very shitty day and what the fucking hell.

"The arraign-" Matt tries again but chokes around the word once more, which finally sets Foggy into practical, business-like motion.

He picks the pair of sunglasses by one of the temples with the tip of his fingers, shaking it to dispel the vomit. The result is a little more disgusting than he expects, but cleaning his little sister's baby reflux hardens a guy, so he just folds it and pushes it inside his suit pocket without a second thought. Matt is still trying to say something but he ignores it, and next goes the cane, as he collapses it and ties its string to his belt with the practice of a pro. At last, he catches Matt by the elbows and draws him up on his feet, having to support him instantly, as the motion brings another wave of expected queasiness.

"Foggy?" Matt asks, being gently held now and steered down the corridor where they came from by kind but efficient hands. "The arraignment," he finally manages the word, and Foggy makes a face.

"No can do, buddy. I'm calling a cab and we're going to the hospital right now."

Matt goes rigid on him and tries to set his foot to halt the walk, which almost sends them both stumbling. "I'm fine," he says, in a very definite and ridiculously stubborn voice, all pale face and vomited suit, and Foggy loses it.

"Oh, of course! This must surely be a new and strange usage of the word 'fine' that I haven't been previously acquainted with!"

"You're yelling," Matt mutters and shuts his eyes tightly, tipping forwards and dry heaving again, but there's nothing else to vomit. Foggy rolls his eyes, holding Matt tighter to keep him upright, marginally inclined to shake him into common sense.

"We're going to the hospital. This is not up for discussion."

Matt breathes deeply through his nose, clearly controlling his nausea but stubborn as a dog that chose his favorite place to piss, resisting being dragged. "Rule 1-16 of professional conduct, Foggy," he says, breathing deeply once again. "Do no harm."

Foggy snorts, the urge to shake him growing. "I'm pretty sure that's the Hippocratic Oath, pal."

"…upon termination of representation, a lawyer shall take steps-"

"-to avoid foreseeable prejudice to the rights of the client. I know, Matt. Don't be an ass."

Matt pauses, filthy and white as a dirty sheet, and Foggy tries to move him once again, but he might as well be made of stone.

"She didn't kill- those… those people," Matt starts to slur, shutting his eyes firmly. Foggy is nearly bearing the full of his weight and he doesn't stop arguing, the obstinate idiot. "We can't leave her."

And surely, can they? Foggy himself told the woman they would go back for her just some hours ago, her eyes shooting daggers at him with distrust. Somewhere in the building an arraignment is starting, his best friend is dry heaving on his arms and a woman, not a murderer, is facing a long jail time if he doesn't go.

But without trust, can there ever be betrayal?

…

The name of the wine bar is Osteria Cotta. The building is made of brick and brownstone, with discreet Italianate details, some cast terracotta, courses of angle-laid brickwork and ornate tin cornices. The neighboring buildings are separated in mid-block by the narrowest of access alleys, giving glimpses of foliage in between. The passage is so narrow it is clearly impossible to run through it without bumping, a single line corridor, and the place reeks of smoke. She frowns, closing her umbrella and stepping inside.

Stacy looks at the crime scene dejectedly. The forensics team has left the place hours ago and the marks on the entry are an ugly white, the yellow tape calling passersby's attention. There isn't much to be done about human curiosity whenever something happens in such a place, a well-known bar in the heart of Upper West Side isn't exactly an inconspicuous location for a crime scene.

She takes the place into account. The bodega is clearly a nice location for intimate meetings, dark, cozy and lit with candles, the type of ludicrous place you have to make a reservation to have a drink. The dining area is large and sectioned into rustic rooms and nooks, the decor made of wood, glass, vintage wine bottles and pretty crystal chandeliers. Unlike most New York City eateries, there seems to be plenty of space between tables.

The place is deceptively clean for a crime scene. There are no chairs or stools thrown haphazardly against the floor, no shattered glass or stained walls, nothing appears to be broken. The entry point of the bullets and the bodies' outlines are neatly hidden in the illusive dark of the space, only possible to be noticed by the sign marks left by the CSI. She has no idea where the burnt smell must be coming from. Mason makes a wearied noise behind her, and Stacy wonders, for a minute, what the hell she is doing here.

Approaching the bar counter she places a manila folder over it, listing her right hand softly over crinkled paper, delicately smoothing out the uneven previously wet surface.

The CSI photos show the original murder scene. The body of Cesare Violi on the left and the marks of where the other two men were before the paramedics had taken them on the right. One of them had been shot in the chest with a .32 caliber handgun, and the other, who had been at the end of the bar to the rear, had been shot five times.

At last, she looks at Violi's picture. He's sitting on a stool slumped over this very counter, looking just like many other dead men she has seen before. Late-fifties to mid-sixties. Light brown – maybe dark-blonde? – hair slick with blood and white matter. Average height. Dark, rich clothes. Very dead. From the picture it's easy to see Violi's spinal cord was severed by a shotgun blast, killed on the spot. She wonders, for a moment, if he looks like his brother. She needs to visit little Rocco, it seems. And Metro General.

With that in mind, she moves the photos out of the way for the next couple of pictures, which show where the fire licked the structure and the documents of forensic evidence collected so far. Time of death between two and three in the morning, while the bodega had already been closed and the movement in UWS dwindling for an uneventful Tuesday. She files it all away, pulling other pictures from behind. Mug shots, four in total. Her eyes flit rapidly from picture to picture as she takes a step back to place her hands on her hips. Her mouth is set determinedly and her brows knit tightly together, the slightest expression of discontent gracing her mild features. She shuts out the noise from the outside: the whoosh of cars passing by, horns honking at traffic and the occasional wailing of a siren in the distance. She blocks it all out to concentrate solely on the faces displayed before her.

Suspect one. Male, late-thirties, slightly overweight, goatee, shaved head and a leather jacket: the archetypal thug. No, too obvious, not suited to this sort of crime.

Suspect two. Male, young, mid-twenties, brightly colored hoodie and slightly tilted cap. No.

Suspect three. Male, late-twenties, gelled hair, red-rimmed glasses, shirt a crisp light blue, shiny earring twinkling in one ear. No, too eye-catching for this sort of stunt.

She could not have a more stereotypical array of suspects if she actively tried. She takes the last picture, eyeing it with a frown.

Primary suspect, Cecilia Valente. Female, early thirties, dark hair pinned back and dressed in white pajamas, steely gaze that Stacy can't read from an image alone. Taken into MCB's custody for arraignment and reported in _flagrante delicto_ : murder weapon covered in her fingerprints, skin tissue under her nails, the deceased's blood splattered on her clothes. Stacy stares at the picture for a long time, keenly trying to make sense of this. For some reason something rings her wrong every time she looks at this woman's photo. As if something is very definitely not right and she should have understood what by now, because she's sure she's seen this before.

Indoors shooting, attempted triple murder, suspicious fire, an officer and a public defender missing. All this done by a deaf woman dressed in white pajamas wielding a shotgun and a .32? Her brain can't reconcile these things with the picture of the disabled petite woman with unwinding hazel stare, but Stacy knows more than most that physical frailty doesn't mean she's not a killer.

"Dolan," a voice calls over her thoughts, "You worked your thing yet?" Mason asks, after apparently having negotiated with himself it is time to tell her she's not Sherlock and this will amount to nothing. He crosses the open space to where Stacy has taken her files. The corners of Mason's brown eyes are crinkled in a jovial sort of manner, trying not to show how bored he really is. Stacy raises her arm to run a hand through dark hair before answering, swiping back her messy mane with a sigh.

"Not yet," she says, eyes still fixed on the images against the counter, searching.

"Well, Sergeant Mahoney isn't officially missing yet," Mason's voice lilts upwards on 'officially' and he rocks forward slightly with the motion of the word. "We should give the appointed team some time before we start looking ourselves, don't you think?" he suggests, lightly.

"Yeah," Stacy agrees, distracted and only half listening to her partner. She takes a breath before finally deciding to close the file and turn to collect the reports and pictures strewn across the counter. Mason makes his way over waiting for Stacy to assemble the stack.

"There is something in your mind…" he trails off, probably waiting for her to admit before he comments on her frustrated body language, and she caves, because he's too good at this.

"This isn't right. There's something the CSI missed in this crime scene, there's something Brett missed when he arrested her, there is something they all missed. And I'm missing it too, it seems, and it's frustrating, because I have no idea what it is but I know it's here."

"They only need the trifecta, Stacy," Mason points out, counting on his fingers for her benefit, as if she doesn't know it by heart. "Physical evidence, murder weapon, crime scene. They have it all."

"It's enough to take her to trial," she concludes what he wants, deflating.

"It's enough to take her to trial," he repeats, complementing, "and to convict without further investigation."

Stacy takes that into consideration, her eyes on Valente's paper ones. "You knew her, didn't you?"

Mason doesn't take long to answer, shrugging and smiling good-naturedly. "I might have."

There is silence for a moment while she finishes pushing everything back to the folder. The speed in which the chief said the case was closed just because they got hold of Valente. The reticence in the case of her missing lawyer. The resistance to pronounce Brett missing.

 _This has got nothing to do with you, Dolan, back off,_ the chief had said when she called upon Willis' terrified testimony. She scowls to the emptiness.

"I won't let anyone take Brett from me too, Mason," Stacy avows with a tight-lipped smile, looking over her shoulder. "Not like I let when they did it to you."

Mason pauses for a moment, eyebrows raised at her in the cozy dark of Osteria Cotta, before a shark-toothed grin breaks out across his face.

"That's my girl."

…

"This is bullshit, you know? The Devil won't come here, he's not stupid."

"You think he knows we're waiting for him?"

"I do. They say he's not human and he's got superpowers. Who's to know?"

"…"

"Don't laugh at me, _stronzo_."

"I'm not, it's funny, though. He's not a superhero, Bianchi, he's just an idiot in red tights with a huge hero complex. He'll show up soon enough and take the dive of his life. He doesn't know he's dealing with the Bonanno, not Fisk's little gang."

"Hm. Right. How's the woman?"

"The process is moving forwards."

"That's it, isn't it? Fattorelli always gets what he wants, that _testa di cazzo_."

"Don't say his name, idiot."

" _E allora_? You think _this_ guy is super powered, then? You're all shitting your pants because of him and he isn't even boss yet."

" _Basta_ , Bianchi. You don't know what the fucker did to Rigoletto. You're pissing up the wrong fucking tree."

"Fine, fine. Forget about it."

…

"Case number 8675342. The People v. Cecilia Valente," she lip-reads with full concentration, as the courtroom clerk calls out. "The charges are First-degree Murder, Manslaughter, Arson with a disregard for human life and two counts of Attempted Murder."

The judge looks at her with his brows furrowed, looking then at the prosecutor. "Lot of charges here, Mr. Devere. I hope you aren't trying to substitute quality for quantity."

Devere looks at her and answers. "Your honor, the defendant is a dangerous criminal who's made three victims and endangered a whole community."

She doesn't say anything, looking back at the judge, who considers her solemnly. "How do you plead?"

This is, indeed, a funny question to be asked. As if anyone is willing to believe her.

She's about to answer when, suddenly, there seems to be some sort of commotion on the back of the room, because all those present look behind her. When she turns to see what's happening there comes the blond lawyer, jogging until he gets to stand by her, doubling over and supporting himself on his knees, catching his breath. She widens her eyes, because, _really?_

"I told you I would come," he seems to say, and she looks at him as if he's grown a second head. He turns to face the judge and says something that is impossible to catch. It's unviable to understand anything anybody says when they speak without facing her, so she stands quietly at the silence of her world, waiting as he speaks. He came back for her and she has no idea what to do with that.

 _Have a little faith_.

…

Karen looks at him with concerned eyes. He's half-sitting, slumped on the examination table beside her, clammy and breathing raggedly, mouth a line of tension and not terribly coherent. She wets her handkerchief again on the water tap of the clinic room and cleans the last of the vomit from him as they wait for the doctor. The call from Foggy had come when she was preparing herself to sleep, and she'd moved so fast to get to Matt and to the hospital it is a wonder she isn't dressing her pajama pants.

Matt squirms on the examination table, pale and uncomfortable over the crinkly paper, and Karen tries not to look at the door and will the doctor in again. At least the triage nurse had taken them quickly to the clinic room, and she tries not to think of what this means.

Matt chuckles, deliriously, and she looks at him, his face lined with pain. "This- week…" he slurs, breathing sharply around the last word, "it can be cancelled. Tell them I'm- I'm indisposed."

She smiles, strewing away from his forehead hair wet with cold sweat. "I'll make sure to tell them." _Whoever they are_.

The door blessedly opens and the doctor enters, a tall middle-aged man with tired eyes and heavy steps. He looks at the file on his hands and approaches them. "I'm Dr. Walker. What can I do for you, Mr. Murdock?"

"I fell," Matt instantly says, and Karen draws her eyebrows up, "on the stairs. Howard helped me up. He fought Viet Congs."

"I see," the doctor replies naturally, shining a light on Matt's eyes with the efficiency of routine. Karen sees when his expression goes dark and decides to intervene, because apparently reading medical histories are for the weak.

"He's blind, doc. No light perception," Dr. Walker almost sighs with relief. "He hasn't been... very coherent, though."

"How high did he fall from? Miss…" He asks, searching Matt's head for injuries and taking note of his face bruises. Matt slaps his hand away and grunts he has a headache and that Valente needs representation because due. process. of. law.

"Page. And I... don't know."

The doctor looks at her briefly and then at Matt again, who is rambling softly about Vietnam, justice and hails of fire. His hand goes to Matt's forehead, taking in his temperature, and Matt squirms away again, crinkling and tearing the paper under him, saying he doesn't want to go to school today, Daddy. Karen sighs, a permanent frown on her brow.

"The triage says the symptoms are strong headache, nausea and dizziness. Anything else?" Dr. Walker asks her, gently pushing his patient, who is trying to get up, back to the table.

"I… don't know for sure?" Karen answers, feeling incompetent. "Our friend was with him, but he had a professional emergency. I've been with Matt for the last hour, he was already in pain and nauseated but more alert; he's been incoherent for about fifteen minutes now." Matt grunts again, squirming, and she remembers. "Oh. He said his back hurts."

"I see." Walker redirects his attention to Matt. "Mr. Murdock, can I check your back?"

Matt cocks his head, straining to focus. "I have a- headache," he answers, unhelpfully, screwing up his face. "This smells… like hospital."

"It does, indeed," the doctor concedes, propping him up with little resistance and gently patting along his spine. "Does this hurt?"

"Ow." Matt says, without inflection, and Karen sees as Dr. Walker accepts that as a yes. He lies Matt back on the examination table and Matt reaches for Karen, saying the smells are too strong. Karen holds his hand, awkwardly, agreeing. _They say we should always agree…?_

"I'll ask for some blood work and for an X-ray. A nurse will come in shortly for the blood sample and to take him." Walker says, leaving the room before she can ask how long this will take.

Matt is staring off into the distance, more unfocused than usual, anyway, and his hand goes limp in hers. She shakes it a little, alarm building in a crescendo. "Matt?"

He doesn't show any signs of hearing her for a whole minute, until he suddenly perks up, lifting his head. " _Cosa Nostra_ ," he says, and Karen instantly goes cold.

"What…?"

"She's talking- it's about our case," Matt mutters between his teeth, still looking dazed, "she's talking about Valente."

"What is she saying?" Karen asks, half mystified and half terrified, having no idea who 'she' is or what's going on.

"'She's a scapegoat for something a lot bigger. This is Fattorelli's doing, I'm sure.'" He says mechanically, as though he's really repeating after someone else word by word.

Karen's blood stops running and her lips go numb. _La Cosa Nostra_.

 _Mio Dio…_ _No…_

…

She flashes the badge at the officer standing in front of the hospital door, "Detective Stacy Dolan. I came here to see Johns Doe and Roe of the Valente case. I suppose this is one of them?"

The man gazes at her with boredom, just stepping aside and letting her enter the small room. Stacy shrugs to Mason as they go in, stopping beside the bed then, looking at the near-dead man with cold eyes.

"Never seen this one before in the OCCB files. Have you?"

Mason crosses his arms, looking pensive. "Something with the Feds… He might've been one of Vincent Asaro's men, but I can't be sure. You don't actively remember me telling you about him."

Stacy goes quiet, feeling the cogs turning in her head, the pieces trying to connect but failing. Mason's voice touches her perception.

"You think this is something bigger, don't you?"

"I do," she answers, with no hesitation.

"What's on your mind?"

"Brett was last seen arresting this woman. Her public defender is missing and I won't be surprised when they find him dead in a dumpster. Valente's arraignment was strangely delayed and then set to motion in the middle of the night to disallow a proper defense. Don't you think something is off?"

Mason shrugs, noncommittally. "You don't simply believe this chick is a bad luck magnet, I take it?"

"Hell, no. Someone is pulling the strings. She's a scapegoat for something a lot bigger," Stacy looks at the man's face, trying to see through his unconsciousness. "This is Fattorelli's doing, I'm sure."

Mason gives her a wearied sigh because she deserves it. "Not everything is connected to the Bonanno, Stacy," and she can feel her temper rising either way.

"Don't preach at me, Carter. I know that."

Some silence, until Mason breaks it again. "What do you have on Violi?"

"Nothing much yet. Emigrated from Italy in the eighties, opened two restaurants and the wine bar about ten years ago. He's been here and there undertaking different projects in the city. Rarely seen amongst the clientele. Something is intriguing, though."

"What is?"

"He immigrated with his baby brother," she smiles, looking at her partner over her shoulder. "I assume you remember Rocco?"

"Rocco Caruso?" Mason asks, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes.

"The one and only. We just didn't know 'Caruso' wasn't his last name. Turns out little Rocco is actually Rocco Violi," Stacy's smile grows a tad more. "Will you continue to tell me I'm seeing shadows where none exist?"

"Never again, cross my heart." Carter answers, as always oddly amused to find out he's wrong. "Something happened with Rocco?"

Stacy nods. "Recently arrested with his men."

"By whom?"

She snorts a little. "Daredevil."

Mason laughs too, albeit a lot more loudly. "Does he intend to shatter every mob rule?"

"God only knows, but I'm not complaining," she looks at the man on the bed and then at Carter again, rubbing her hands together. "How about we go for a close encounter of the third kind?"

…

Foggy feels Valente looking at him as if she can't imagine what in the world has caused him to return, the judge is talking and the prosecutor is saying something, but his concentration is far from the courtroom. He can't do a thing other than worry incessantly about people that are not on his reach, so he can't help seeming more interested in checking his cell phone intermittently for one of Karen's messages or for anything that Willis has to say. It's all very sensible, really.

The judge doesn't seem to agree, though, glaring at him when he admonishes, "Mr. Nelson, unless your wife is giving birth at this very moment or you've just learned your house is on fire, I suggest you put your cell phone away and concentrate on helping your client before I hold you in contempt of court. Then you'll be free of your distractions and have plenty of time to get her case ready, when you spend the night in an analogous position in a jail cell."

"I apologize, your honor," he offers, shoving the phone in his pocket, sounding more tense than apologetic. Only then he realizes the _tink_ sound was it connecting with Matt's glasses. He looks down. The cane is still folded against his leg. _Oh,_ _damn_ _._

"I won't repeat again, Mr. Nelson. How does your client plead?"

Foggy almost whines. "My client pleads not guilty to all charges."

No surprise here. The judge redirects his eyes to the prosecutor.

"Mr. Devere?"

"The People request remand."

"What?!" Foggy interjects, and the judge narrows his eyes at him. Devere doesn't give a shit, going on with his monologue.

"The defendant has displayed quite a talent for trickery, coercion, and bloody homicide, judging by the use of proximity to kill her victims. She has no official identity, lacks community ties, and is an extreme flight risk."

"This is preposterous, your honor. Miss Valente has no criminal record and no funds to endeavor this grand escape. Keeping her locked up without reasonable motif is an effrontery to all common decency."

"As I said, because of her lack of identity and ties to the community she has motif and opportunity to flee. And the defendant is charged with heinous crimes, Mr. Nelson." Devere says, smiling at him. "These are enough charges to be concerned."

Foggy bristles. "Apparently the People forgot the principle of Presumption of Innocence. My client has no history of violence and has never been charged with a crime."

"Your client has no identity, we have no idea what she did or did not do. She might've slept with Mr. Violi to get close enough to kill him for all we know, if we are to consider her state of dress at the time of the arrest."

"Objection!" Foggy yells, and he doesn't even know on which grounds he's objecting, really, but he is. On the grounds of this whole fucking day, maybe. _God, why am I not on my bed?_

The judge pounds his gavel. "That was a nice try, counselor. Don't do it again."

"My apologies," Devere says, and Foggy wants to punch him. "Here is the statement that supports my claim to ask for remand, your honor," the prosecutor puts a file over the defense table and another goes to the judge's hand. Foggy gets the paper and looks over it as soon as he can, mentalizing, for the ninth time on this day, a what-the-fuck. "In this file the defendant confesses-"

 _How did this even happen?!_ , he thinks, when Cecilia's handcuffed hands rest against his arm. "What happened?" she asks, and then he realizes. She has no idea what is going on. They didn't arrange for an ASL interpreter or for any kind of aid so that she could understand the process. And an idea forms in his head and he almost smiles from the sheer brilliancy of it. _Almost_.

He throws the statement over the defense table and squares his shoulders. "I object."

Devere looks at him as though he's lost his mind, but Foggy continues.

"This process has been badly conducted so far, your honor. The police officers must administer the Miranda warnings fully and effectively in accordance to the Supreme Court's decision in _Miranda v. Arizona_ , if they want any of the statements they acquired to be valid."

"Don't preach to me about the law, Mr. Nelson. Get to your point."

"If the police wants to question a deaf suspect, they must establish communication. If they press charges, they must inform the deaf suspect of the nature and cause of the accusation," he looks at Valente, and she furrows her eyebrows. "Because Ms. Valente is physically unable to fully understand spoken Miranda warnings and spoken questions, a language interpreter must be provided upon arrest, questioning and arraignment, and this hasn't been done."

The judge's voice goes a tad hotter. "Are you saying this is enough to call for the lack of Miranda warning, counselor?"

"The _Miranda v. Arizona_ dictates that suspects must be adequately and effectively apprised of their rights to permit them the full opportunity to exercise the right to remain silent. The warning is essential to ensure they know of their privilege against self-incrimination. Any and every statement the officers have gotten from my client cannot be taken into account as evidence if that is so."

Devere prickles at that. "This is ludicrous, your honor. The woman can understand the officers just fine. She is remarkably good at lip-reading."

Foggy controls himself not to glower as he finishes his point.

"What the prosecutor fails to see is that the constitutional rights guaranteed by the fifth and sixth amendments must be protected at all stages of the criminal process. This hasn't been done for my client, and I fail to see the system working properly on her behalf if a bail bond is not set and she has to remain in custody."

"Don't embellish it, Mr. Nelson."

The judge is not happy but Foggy won't concede because he too can be a little shit. "With all due respect, your honor, due process of law. The system hasn't worked so far for my client."

The judge hums under his breath, looking at Cecilia, and finally assents. "That's an issue for your trial judge. I'll add on the lesser charge and hear the People as to bail."

Devere isn't pleased so he mouths it with distaste. "A million."

Foggy nearly giggles with disbelief. "That is excessive, your honor. My client doesn't have as much as a parking ticket!"

Devere snickers. "I'm sure if she did, she'd just off it along with her victims."

"Oh, all right. That's enough out of both of you. Bail is set at a hundred thousand, cash only. Post or enjoy Rikers hospitality," the judge says, and bangs his gavel again. Cecilia looks at Foggy, a question in her eyes, as the CO comes from behind her and takes her again.

And Foggy doesn't know how to explain in a way she'll listen why he failed her.

He doesn't even try.

…

He is almost sure his dog is allergic to Royal Canin. There is no other good explanation why Moses would be throwing up his favorite food on the carpet, he doesn't think. Deciding to change Moses' diet, Phillips yawns and shakes his head, looking back at the X-ray images.

Scrutinizing heads has never been his favorite chore. Granted, he's a radiologist, so it shouldn't come as such a surprise he'd have to do this virtually every day, but Metro General's recent policy of cutting back expenses has all but driven him mad: what with the crazy demands that his team diagnoses all kinds of trauma by simple flat images.

Walker is leaning against the wall, supernaturally capable of napping while standing and managing to side-step all extra ER work by pretending he needs these results as fast as possible. Phillips narrows his eyes at him and is swiftly ignored. Back to the radiography images, then.

A real head injury analysis would at least depend on a proper CAT scan, maybe including some dye or even an MRI, which he can't use unless someone is dying. So he props himself against the table and stares at the images, trying to find a proper diagnosis that won't cost them their license. Walker chooses this moment to come back to the world of the living.

"Done with your magic yet?"

"You know this is quite impossible. I'm not Harry Potter, can't just _wingardium leviosa_ this shit and all will be well when it ends well."

"I feel for you."

"Shut up, Walker."

Walker yawns, coming closer, and Phillips sighs. "What have you got?"

"You tell me. It can be nothing, it can be everything. He might be okay tomorrow or dead with a severe hemorrhage that we just won't be able to see in a flat X-ray unless I'm staring at a pool of internal bleeding."

"You're bitter."

"Of course I'm bitter. The Dean wants me to Merlin up image diagnosis like I'm Gandalf's little brother."

"I'm sure you've mixed up pretty much all the magician stories I know just there." Phillips raises his hands and Walker shrugs. "Since you're in such a bad mood, I might as well inform you the patient is a lawyer."

Phillips rolls his eyes. "Oh, the joy. The man will sue our asses to the ends of the Earth if we give him a diagnosis that even hints at 'I don't know but let us call it this'." Walker nods, grim. "What do _you_ have?"

Walker sighs, crossing his arms. "He says he fell, so it's certainly a blunt trauma. Some minor spine bruising. Considering the dark circles under Murdock's eyes, I'd also tick lack of sleep."

"Any loss of consciousness?"

"Nope, but a disoriented state."

"What else?"

Walker shrugs again. "The canon symptoms of head trauma. Headache, nausea, drowsiness, dizziness... Lack of concentration, mood changes."

"It's all consistent with a mild TBI."

"That's what I was going for. Tell me you can see it in there."

Phillips huffs a sarcastic laugh, shaking his head. "I can see elephants in clouds more clearly. But sure. Why not?"

…

Lorenzo Fattorelli looks out the window; the dark skyline of Manhattan is stricken with rain. The prime of New York City. The most delightful of the territories; not because it _is_ beautiful, but because he _wants_ it.

One is gone, three more to go.

…

When the doctor returns, Karen feels so cold she knows if she starts shaking she'll never stop. Matt is blessedly asleep on the table, his fingers entwined with hers as a little boy's would, having repeated to her, word by word, the most peculiar of the one-sided conversations. At some point she'd left him speaking, opened the door and looked around, but the person he was listening to was nowhere to be seen. _This is how he does it, then_ , she thinks, looking at him frozen and detached, _real blindness but super-hearing_.

"Miss Page?" Dr. Walker calls, claiming her attention, and she tries to give him her full mind (or the most she can). "The results are back."

"Yes?" She croaks out, her voice as dry as her eyes.

"The blood tests returned normal, but the X-ray results show some disturbance consistent with a mild TBI. Nothing very concerning, but I'd like to keep him for 24 hours just to be sure."

"TBI?" Karen repeats, muddled.

"Traumatic Brain Injury. You've probably heard of it by the name of concussion."

She licks her lips, her throat also dry. "I see." Matt's fingers twitch on hers. "Isn't this… concerning?"

Walker doesn't flinch, but his casualness looks strained for some reason. "Most mild TBIs heal quickly and with no lasting symptoms, but we'll, of course, continue monitoring. He'll be as good as new in a few." He changes subjects quickly. "Are you Mr. Murdock's health care agent?"

"Huh… no," she replies, blinking rapidly. "Our friend I mentioned is. I will… I'll call him."

…

It's raining, the wind is freezing and his umbrella has just died on him. His amount of luck is so gigantic right now Foggy might as well wait for lightning to strike him down. He hails a cab but the son of a whore not only ignores him, but also splashes all the water on the asphalt on him, bless his soul. The amount of tiredness that his body contains right now shouldn't be able to fit in one man, so he wonders, for half a minute, if it would be too undignified to lie down on the wet curbside and take a nap. That is, until his phone vibrates inside his pocket, tingling louder against Matt's glasses.

 _Shit! Matt!_ In the haze of his failure and the tiredness of his brain he'd nearly forgotten. Foggy has to type his password twice before he gets it right and unlocks the phone. As expected, it's a message from Karen: _Results are back, it's a_ _concussion_ _. Doc recommends a hospital stay. Need you here for forms ASAP._

A hospital stay? He feels marginally bad for having left this task to Karen, Matt can be a pain in the ass with anything related to professional health care and hospitals. (He won't _ever_ forgive that one time he had to drag Matt across the campus because of a pneumonia, even after he'd made Matt read twenty full articles entitled 'Common Illnesses that Still Kill People in the 21st Century', _heh_.) He slides the phone back inside his pocket (avoiding clicking it against the glasses again) and turns his full concentration on finding a cab-

The weirdest of the sensations envelops him. He widens his eyes a fraction, feeling all the hair on his body stand on end. A distinct sensation of being hunted encases his senses and he stops moving instantly, sucking in a sharp breath, stunned into stillness. He has no idea where this is coming from but it's a feeling impossible to be ignored. A detached part of him wonders if this is anything similar to what Matt feels all the time.

There is something in the farthest edge of his field of view but he can't quite identify it. He licks his lips, his eyes moving quickly around him, assessing anything possible to become a weapon, when he remembers the object dangling on his side, attached to his belt. With slow, careful movements, Foggy unfastens the string and unfolds the cane, extending it until its tip touches the floor. The white cane is a little more than 5 feet long and a lightweight, which means it wasn't exactly made to hit people with (he's never asked if Matt had ever had to resort to that). It will have to make do.

The shadow looms and he rises his weapon.

…

Cecilia Valente looks out the window; the dark skyline of Manhattan is stricken with rain. The prime of New York City. The most dreadful of the territories; not because it _is_ frightful, but because he _wants_ it.

One is gone, three more to go.

…

 _There is no such thing as hope for the wicked; banished from the Garden of Eden, they are supernovas crashing into purgatory._

 _He_ _is_ _ **wrong**_ _: faith is a shovel. It buries you with no coffin bell to ring._

…

…

…

 **A.N.:** Thank you so much if you've read it so far! I'd love to see what you're thinking about this, so... if you have some time, please type me something! Even if it's just to comment on how cute is little Matt sleeping on an exam table. Hugs and see you next chapter!

Guest on July 15: Thank you so much! I'm glad you like Cecilia, I'm trying to make her interesting, since her case is the one our favorite avocados are working with. We'll have more on Claire soon.

Konos77: Your account doesn't allow PMs, so I couldn't reach you. Thanks so much for the compliments! Yes, it might be some form of PTSD, who knows? Hahaha Yes, Howard will still be mentioned here and there (I hope you've liked him!)


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